


Way Out West

by Ultra



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Frontier, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Western, F/M, Family, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/828913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ultra/pseuds/Ultra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wild West/Pioneer Days AU. When Texas Ranger Eliot Spencer saves a wagon train from disaster, he never expects to fall for Parker, the captain’s daughter. Seems these two might just be destined to make a match, but the course of true love never did run smooth, especially in times as tough as these.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - A Storm Brewin'

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to John Rogers, Chris Downey, TNT, and other folks that aren’t me.

There was a storm coming in.

Most would know that when it came into sight, rolling across the prairie like a devil come to ravage the land. In winter time, they came with stark regularity, most folks knew to watch out for them. All white with snow and cold as a killer’s stare.

It was different in the summer months, when they were much less frequent. Still could do as much damage though, and still he always knew when they were on the way.

It wasn’t seeing the clouds change, or even feeling a shift in the wind that tipped him off. It was a sense, something he never had been able to explain, but he reckoned it came from his Momma’s heritage. Daddy said as much, when he was no more than knee high to a cricket.

These days it was hard to tell this guy was anything but the upstanding white man he appeared to be. A Texas Ranger known near and far for his courage and strength. The woman that died bringing him into this world was long forgotten by the town he and his father had settled in, but her son would always hold onto the stories he knew of that beautiful daughter of a Cherokee chief.

Eliot Spencer loved to know he was half his mother and half the well-respected town sheriff that had been his father. A child of the land, and a child of the law, all rolled up into one man. He took his role in this world as serious as anything, and anybody who knew him took that as read.

“’S gonna be a bad one, boy,” he said softly to his mount, patting the trusty steed on his neck.

The faithful horse seemed to nod in some kind of agreement.

Animals understood the Earth better than most people. He probably sensed the storm coming too and knew it would be just as awful as his rider said. Of course, as much as Eliot understood the destruction the storm could bring, he also had a feeling some good might yet come out of it.

All things happened for a reason. The wind, the rain, the sun, the snow; God sent each of his seasons with a plan in mind. He knew what he wanted, what the people needed, even if they couldn’t figure it out themselves.

As far as Eliot knew, no man was supposed to understand the way of such things. They were just meant to do their best with what they had, what they were given in time, and accept that some things just had to be, even if they seemed unjust or unfair .

There was a storm coming in, and for reasons he couldn’t ever explain, the realisation of it made Eliot Spencer smile.


	2. Chapter 1 - The Girl From The Wagon Train

It was the middle of Summer and so the storm had come as unexpected. They had chosen the usually more clement season to travel on purpose, and yet the weather on the open plains proved to be as changeable as ever. Parker lost count of the number of times the wagon wheels got stuck in mud, the nights when it had been too cold to even sleep. She started to wonder how she ever came to be this far out west, what had ever possessed her to want to leave the civilisation of the east coast towns. Every time she thought on it she remembered and kept on walking until her feet blistered and cracked.

They were into Texas now, she knew. Her sense of direction was better than most, and what she didn’t know herself she got from Nate. He was their trusted leader, and had gotten them this far, but even he couldn’t predict the weather. When the storm came, the children were bundled into the wagons with the supplies. Some of the women too, but most had to continue walking, just like Parker.

The rain came down like rods of steel, hammering on her head and back. She couldn’t see where she was going anymore, but kept a tight hold of the ropes attached to the wagon. She lost her footing too many times and felt she could hardly breathe as the rains lashed down harder still. Parker wondered how Nate could see to drive the horses but they kept on going. There was no option but to try, no shelter to be found for miles around.

Children screamed and cried from inside the wagons behind. Dogs howled and even the wild birds made a squawking furore as they tried to navigate away from the worst of the weather. The rain beating on canvas was deafening enough without the added noise. It was louder than the city with its many familiar sounds, but then nature had a habit of being that much more in everything than anything man could create.

“Parker!” Miss Sophie cried when the poor girl’s feet went from under her one more time and this time Parker fell to her knees.

“I’m okay,” she yelled back, over the howling of the wind, though her legs felt afire as she dragged herself back up.

The horses reared, as lightning flashed before them, and thunder rolled like an angry bear the size of the whole sky. Nate barely kept them steady, Parker and Sophie both had to run to keep up with the wagon. Behind them, the other men and women were doing no better, and it was soon very clear that they were lost. A person couldn’t see a hand in front of their face out here, never mind the trail they should be following. It was impossible.

“We can’t keep going on like this,” Nate yelled down from the seat, pulling hard on the horses reins. “Sophie! Parker!”

“We’re here,” his companion called back, staggering as the wind buffeted her first against Parker and then back against the wagon.

Sophie struggled to reach Nate and ask him what on Earth they would do now. Parker stayed still. She leaned back against the solid wood of their wagon and tried to see anything into the distance. The rain was thick as fog, obscuring the prairie that ought to spread for miles before her in its usual green and brown blanket. Now she saw nothing at all, for the longest time. Then somehow there was a shadow, a figure perhaps. Parker squinted, blinked, rubbed her eyes with the back of her sodden arm. It was a figure, on a horse. Riding towards them out of the rain, a hero to save them perhaps. Parker would not know for sure, at least not right now, for just as the stranger grew close enough to make out more clearly, the power of the rain pouring down through her clothes brought her to her knees one more time and the world went away.

* * *

Parker’s head was pounding, like a drum beat over and over. She fought to open her eyes, and eventually noted the canvas above her. She was laid out in the back of the wagon, squeezed in tight between boxes of Sophie’s clothes and Nate’s family heirlooms. Every item packed was vital or far too sentimental to let go. Very little of it belonged to Parker herself, she always did travel light. Probably a good thing or there would be no space at all for her to be squeezed into back here.

She remembered the rain, the feeling of being soaked through, heavy and tired. It was as this thought ran though her mind that Parker realised she could no longer even hear the sounds of the storm around her. The wind had died down to barely a breeze that she felt passing over her. The rain was long gone and she had no doubt the sun would be shining brightly, except when she slowly sat up she realised it was almost completely dark outside.

There were voices beyond the wagon’s canvas. They must have made camp for the night, and Parker realised she must have been in a dead faint for hours. Probably scared Sophie half to death, which she hated, maybe Nate too. Trying to move made her feel queasy, but Parker could just about manage it. She shifted towards the back of the wagon but stopped short of climbing out when she heard a voice she didn’t recognise at all joining in with Sophie and Nate.

“Y’all need to stay put a while, I reckon,” said the unknown man who she could only see from the back from her hiding place. “’Tween the sick and injured, plus the way the weather keeps turnin’...”

“We can’t stay long,” Nate interrupted. “Our supplies will only last so much time, we need to keep moving.”

“We can’t go anywhere until Parker is feeling better, Nate,” said Sophie then, a hand to his arm. “It’s not fair.”

“I’m fine,” said the young woman as she showed herself at last.

Parker lowered herself over the back of the wagon, landing on unsteady legs in the mud. She wobbled badly and immediately regretted getting out. Even the light of the small fire and the glowing moon seemed harsh to her eyes, and her head started up with its banging rhythm again.

“Sweetheart, you shouldn’t be out here,” said Sophie, moving to help her. “You’re not well.”

“I could be worse,” she replied, allowing herself to be assisted, though her eyes remained on the stranger amongst them. “You came out of the rain, like an angel to save us.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, ma’am,” the mystery man smiled slightly, almost embarrassed though she wouldn’t’ve thought such a thing possible of a Texas Ranger as his badge proclaimed. “Y’all were in trouble. I did what any man would do,” he shrugged.

Parker wasn’t so sure about that. She agreed more with Sophie who was now telling how this man, this Eliot Spencer, had ridden through the storm, taken charge of the wagon train, and saved them all. She heard enough to understand, but still Parker kept on staring at the man in front of her. The company of men was something she was used to really, other boys from the streets, and men in the town. This one was different, and though Parker couldn’t put her finger on why right now, she still knew it was true.

“Thank you,” she told him just as soon as there was a gap in the conversation for her to speak again. “For saving us. For saving me,” she amended.

Eliot nodded once.

“You’re more’n welcome, ma’am,” he assured her, tipping his hat.

“Parker,” she told him, a smile coming to her lips that it was clear Nate didn’t like the look of, especially when Spencer returned it. “My name is Parker.”

“It’s a pleasure, Miss Parker,” Eliot said politely. “But for now I think I ought to be goin’, let you folks get some rest.”

Parker wanted to argue with that, but her body protested her professing such a lie. She did need rest. There wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t ache, as if a whole team of horses had run over her whilst she slept. Sophie was whispering assurances for Parker’s health, whilst Nate walked away with Eliot, shaking his hand and bidding him thanks and a safe journey back to town.

“Will he come back?” Parker asked Sophie, even as she was eased back into the wagon, her eyes stuck on the retreating figure of the Ranger.

Sophie smiled to herself, glancing between Parker and Eliot.

“Oh, yes. I’m certain he’ll be back,” she said definitely.

Nate scowled when he heard that, knowing it was true.

* * *

Sophie was proven right. That wasn’t really a new experience for her, but it still made her smile when it happened all the same. Nate was not happy to see the Ranger again, but Parker practically lit up at the sight of him.

It had been two whole days. With all the problems caused by the storm, and more rain that came after, the train was not fit to move at all. Nate helped others with fixing up their wagons and Sophie assisted in looking after any sick or injured people. Parker sat and pined. It wasn’t really like her. She was usually an active person, always moving, busy, inquisitive and talkative. Her motivation was lessened by her feeling so out of sorts. The illness didn’t hold onto her for long and after plenty of sleep and some of Miss Sophie’s healing chicken broth, she was doing much better, but she wasn’t herself. Her eyes kept to the horizon, waiting and wondering, until finally Eliot Spencer rode back into the camp.

His first concern was Parker’s health and he seemed thrilled to see how much better she was doing. Nate would hardly look at the man, though he knew as well as anyone he was the saviour of the whole train. Nate was protective of Parker, and that was just fine. It showed that the caring side that sometimes seemed to be lost a while back actually still existed as strongly as ever.

“I don’t wanna bother you folks too much,” said Eliot, even as Nate made excuses and wandered away. “I just thought maybe if you needed a hand with anything...”

“I think we have almost everything under control,” said Sophie thoughtfully, watching Parker as her own expression turned to worry that Eliot might just ride off as fast as he came in. “Although, you could do one thing for me, if you wouldn’t mind. I just have so much to do... Poor Parker is still a little out of sorts but I know some fresh air and a short walk would do her good. Perhaps you could accompany her?”

Eliot wasn’t sure how to take that request, so he decided not to think too much about it. He asked what he could do to help, the answer was to spend some quality time with an attractive young woman. There was no way for a man to really argue with such a thing, though he was a little curious as to why a mother would allow a strange man to take her daughter off somewhere private. Weren’t exactly how things worked around here, but then this lady wasn’t from anywhere close to Texas. If he’d have to guess, Eliot was pretty sure that fancy accent was British.

“That okay with you, Miss Parker?” he asked politely, glad to see the blonde smile widely.

“Uh-huh. That’s fine,” she agreed, taking his hand without a moments thought so he could help her down from the back of the wagon.

Her legs were a little shaky still, but that was fine. Parker had a feeling if she tripped or fell at all, Eliot would be there to catch her. It was strange, she generally had problems with trusting people, but after what he’d done, saving the train and everything, she just trusted him. It made no real sense. Some men would fake an act of heroism to rob people blind or worse. Parker just didn’t get that feeling about Eliot. She got a whole bunch of other feelings that she never had before, but none of them were in any way bad.

The unlikely couple walked outside the circle of wagons, past where Eliot’s horse was tied up. They headed down towards the swollen creek a fair distance from the chatter of Parker’s neighbours. She was glad to feel the sun full on her skin through the thin fabric of her dress. Sophie and Nate had been advising her to keep inside the wagon for the most part, especially when the rain persisted. She had been asleep so much, being awake had never felt so good as right now, and the sun had re-awoken alongside her. Parker sat down in the long grass with no thought for the state of her clothes or any kind of propriety as she allowed her bare toes to dip into the water and flung her head back so the sun kissed her face.

Eliot watched her for a moment, shifting uncomfortably. Weren’t exactly right for him to just sit down beside a woman like this. It wouldn’t stop him with some of the folks he knew from town, the experienced women from the bars and such. Parker was different. She was the innocent country girl type, young and pretty, probably hadn’t an idea what the sight of her in such a way could do to a man like him.

“Aren’t you gonna sit down?” she asked eventually, her eyes that had previously been closed now staring up at Eliot, reflecting the question she just asked.

He didn’t answer her verbally, just took off his hat and dropped his butt down onto the ground beside her. His arms were resting on his bent knees and he stared out at the view across the water and prairie beyond.

“It’s beautiful here,” she sighed, sharing his opinion of that view apparently, though he hadn’t voiced it yet.

“It really is,” he agreed anyway, before silence reigned a while.

Parker wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. She wanted to say a lot, to be clever and sweet, all those things Sophie was around men. None of it came easy to Parker, and she could only find one thing to speak of when it came to making conversation with the mysterious and heroic Eliot Spencer.

“Thank you,” she said at last. “For saving me before. I...”

“You really don’t have to keep on thanking me,” he said, shifting awkwardly and barely even looking her way. “Any person would’ve done it, and even if they wouldn’t...” he continued when he did meet her eyes and realised she was about to interrupt. “Well, either way, you thanked me enough already, you and your parents both.”

Eliot was surprised to realise that Parker found that funny. He didn’t see what there was to laugh at about his requesting she not be too overly grateful for what he did. Still, she seemed to find it hilarious.

“You think Nate and Sophie are my parents?” she checked, trying to get her laughter under control.

Eliot frowned at that.

“Yes, ma’am,” he confirmed with a single nod. “I mean, you’re travelling with ‘em, and I even heard you call the man ‘father’.”

Parker bit her lip to hold in another giggle and then propped herself up on her elbows as she began to explain.

“Father as in priest, not my pa,” she told him, watching Eliot’s eyes go almost comically wide.

“He’s a man o’ the cloth?” he checked, finding the concept strange.

“Kind of,” Parker shrugged. “When I got to town that’s what he was. He had a church at the end of main street, and... and he just loved to help people,” she smiled at some sort of happy memory, and Eliot just watched and listened as she told the whole story. “Since his brother died, he was helping his brother’s wife and child to get along, and then he helped me. After he found me in the church, trying to steal from the collection box... Oh, I was only twelve and I’d been living on the street, I was desperate,” she explained quickly when she realised how bad it might sound. “Anyway, Father Nate helped me, paid for a room at Miss Sophie’s boarding house down the street. Everything was good for a while.”

Eliot watched a dark cloud come over her sunny expression, her eyes dipping to the ground. Things had gone south after her supposed rescue by Father Nate, that much was clear. He wanted to ask but feared her getting upset. Nothing tore at the tough guy’s heart like tears on the cheeks of a woman, pretty or otherwise. Still, it seemed Parker didn’t need prompting to explain. Before long she picked up right where she left off.

“Nate was okay when he had family to take care of, but then the yellow fever came,” she explained sadly. “It claimed a lot of lives, including Maggie and little Sam. Father Nate, he couldn’t cope. He started to drink and... things got messy,” she sighed. “Miss Sophie and me, we tried to help him but... but he just lost his faith for the longest time.”

“And now?” asked Eliot in a soft tone he hardly knew he possessed.

“I don’t know,” Parker shrugged, looking sideways at him. “After Father Nate moved into the boarding house, rumours started. It was something and nothing, Miss Sophie said. Some people don’t understand that men and women can be friends without anything wrong happening,” she explained, and Eliot bit his tongue. “After the new Sheriff came to town, things just got worse. The people turned on us. They thought Father Nate was trustworthy before, but when he started drinking... and Miss Sophie had a reputation, apparently. She’s a good person, she really is, but her and Nate can’t exactly go ahead and be married so...”

“People fear what they don’t understand,” said Eliot, not sure it helped really but feeling the need to be comforting in some way that didn’t involve him touching the vulnerable young woman he never ought to have been left alone with.

“I guess,” Parker sighed heavily. “Anyway, Sheriff Sterling rallied the worst of the town against us. They burned down the boarding house, these people who I thought really liked me, liked us, accepted us all even though we were different. They burned down the only home I ever knew.”

She was going to cry, they both knew it and both hated it too. Eliot wished they never started this conversation, and at the same time, he wanted to know everything Parker had to tell him, though he couldn’t ever explain why he had such a need to know her better.

“So, y’all packed up and came West?” he said carefully, hoping thoughts of where she was now might brighten her mood - it seemed to work.

“Uh-huh,” she sniffed once and then smiled again as she turned her head and looked his way. “Everything we had went in the back of the only wagon we could afford, and here we are. We don’t have much, but I never needed stuff anyway,” she shrugged almost too easily as she looked back towards the wagon they had left behind.

“You’ve been through a lot,” said Eliot as he stared at her, the eyes of an old soul in such a fresh young face.

“Hasn’t everybody?” she replied as she met his gaze.

There was no real answer to such a question, or if there was Eliot didn’t have it. He supposed Parker was right. Nobody got through life without a struggle, at least not any folks he knew. Life came with troubles, these things sent to try each person, test their endurance for survival and affinity for love. Already Eliot knew he wanted to help Parker overcome any problems in her own young life, and he wanted to love her. Scratch that, he didn’t want to so much as he already did. It was impossible when he barely knew her, and yet she had haunted his dreams two nights in a row, and after today was bound to do so again.

The wind changed, just subtly. Enough to blow Eliot’s hair into his eyes and make him pay attention. He looked across the sky that slowly darkened from the far distance, getting closer all the time. There wouldn’t be another storm half so bad as the one that nearly wrecked the wagon train, but rain was coming again, and fast.

“We should get you back,” he said, rising quickly to his feet and brushing the grass off his behind.

Parker moved to get up herself but failed in doing so. She still wasn’t quite up to strength yet and occasionally her head swam for no real reason at all. She looked up at Eliot, not daring to ask that he actually help her. In the end, she didn’t have to. He anticipated what she needed and offered a hand to assist. For the second time today, Parker placed her hand in Eliot’s own, and felt the strength in his muscles as he pulled her easily back onto her feet, steadying her at the elbows when she wobbled a little.

“Thank you, Mr Spencer,” she said politely.

“You’re welcome, Miss Parker,” he replied with a hint of a smile he just couldn’t help. “You, er... you wanna take my arm to walk back?”

She nodded gently and hooked her arm though his own. Truth was, she probably didn’t need the support right now, but Miss Sophie always said that when a man offered to be a gentleman that way, you had to encourage it. Besides, Parker liked feeling this close to Eliot Spencer. She could never explain why, but somehow she felt like she could happily walk arm in arm with him like this forever.


	3. Chapter 2 - Honourable Men

“Eliot!”

The voice of his friend cut through too much deep thought and pulled the Ranger up sharply. He looked sideways at Alec and didn’t wonder at his odd expression. For him to have got so loud meant he had probably called for Eliot’s attention several times already and started to worry when he didn’t reply.

Fact of the matter was Eliot hadn’t heard anything his cowboy friend said this whole time, not since he arrived out on the McRory ranch this morning to help out with roping these steers. Eliot was working purely on automatic and reflexes, no thoughts in his head had a thing to do with cattle or anything similar.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said, physically shaking his head so it would clear. “I was just...”

“You was just away with them damn fairies is what you was,” said Alec, a wide grin showing off the bright white teeth in his dark face. “That sweet girl from the wagon train still on your mind?”

“Who says she ever has been on my mind?” Eliot grumbled, not at all happy at being caught out apparently.

Alec chuckled long and loud at that.

“I says, that’s who!” he told his oldest friend. “You talk plenty about her. I don’t even think you know you’re doin’ it. Miss Parker this and Miss Parker that. I didn’t know you better, I’d think you’d gone right ahead and fallen in love with that preacher’s daughter,” he shook his head.

“She ain’t his daughter, I already told you,” Eliot rolled his eyes, though he knew same as Alec did that it weren’t the point. “But she is special, I’ll admit that much,” he smiled slightly, hardly able to explain what was going on in his own head right now. “I promised to go back and see her again.”

“How long since you were there now? Couple o’ days?” Alec checked. “Don’t wait too long, man. That train could move on any time,” he advised, turning his horse around to ride right past Eliot and go after another steer in the distance. “Weather’s clearing up fast,” he called over his shoulder as he flew away on his mount, rope swinging over his head.

Eliot barely noticed the going of his friend. Alec had a point, of course, though he’d never tell him so. Maybe he had mentioned Miss Parker a might too often to be a passing interest. She was a fine looking young woman, that was for sure, but not the kind of person who would be interested in knowing him better. Truth of the matter was, Eliot didn’t feel he could deserve any woman, much less one so sweet and special as her. Still, what he said was true, he had promised to go back and visit with her again, and if he were nothing else Eliot Spencer was a man of his word, just like his Daddy before him.

Alec was right. The wagon train would not stay forever. The weather was turning back to sunshine and clear skies. The mud on the ground would harden, the wagons would be repaired, and those good folks would prepare to continue their travels west. Before they left, he had to get back over there, even if all he got to say to Parker was goodbye.

Looking across the plain to where Alec rode, dragging in another calf by its short horns, Eliot realised this part of their work was all but done. He could get away with leaving within the hour, get himself cleaned up a little, and then head on over to where the wagons were circled just two or three miles outside of town. There was a smile on his face at the idea of his plan, as he kicked his horse into a gallop, swinging his rope over his head.

* * *

There was talk of them leaving. A part of Parker yearned to be on the road again, to be travelling and seeing new sights. At the same time, she dreaded the idea of going away from this place. It was where she had suffered, where too many had been sick and injured over the past few days. It was also the place where she had been saved, where she had met the Texas Ranger they called Eliot Spencer.

Parker never felt this way before. She never dreamt of a man only to wake and be sorry he was not beside her. She said not a word to Father Nate, since he clearly would not approve. A young woman like her wasn’t even supposed to be thinking of men that way, though Parker was twenty one and old enough to be wed if she wished it. Inside her own mind, she wondered if she could ever want to be a wife, a mother, the traditional type of woman. At the same time, she almost wanted to find out and with Eliot of all people.

He had made her a promise to come back and visit. She believed him, she truly did, and yet she worried she might never lay eyes on him again. If Father Nate decided they must leave then they would. She couldn’t go and find Eliot to say goodbye. Though she could probably find the town he came from herself, and could get there easily now she was feeling so much better, there was nothing to say she would ever be able to track him down.

“Parker, sweetheart!” called Sophie to where her friend was sat in the long grass by the creek again. “You have a visitor,” she smiled when Parker popped her head up to look.

A grin broke out wider than any ever seen on the blonde’s face as she realised who said visitor was, the very person she had been hoping for. Up on her bare feet in a second, she came running full pelt at Eliot, only to pull herself up short right in front of him. Neither of them were sure how she came to a halt so abruptly, unruly blonde hair all full of dry grass, and a wet patch on her dress from the creek splashing on her. To Eliot, no woman ever looked more perfect.

“Mr Spencer,” she addressed him formally as she was supposed to.

“Miss Parker,” he replied in kind, nodding a greeting.

“I am sorry to seem rude, but I really must leave you both,” said Sophie then, with a smile she tried to hide. “Father Nathan will be looking for me...”

She did not bother to explain further, since she doubted either Parker or Eliot were truly listening. Their eyes were for each other alone. Of course, they knew little of each other in any real sense yet, but Sophie was all too aware of how much that didn’t matter. Sometimes two people knew everything they could ever need to know in the first few moments. The heart and soul always knew, long before the head could make a logical case. She had seen it before, indeed she had experienced it, though her own longing was hopeless. At least these two lost souls had a chance of finding a future together, and she would so love to see it happen.

Eliot and Parker accompanied each other in walking, her arm through his before he even offered. That made him smile more than it should. She seemed to trust him, though she had no real reason to, and to like him though they barely knew each other yet. Girls like her weren’t usually so forthcoming, and it let a flicker of hope in Eliot’s chest grow in strength.

“I’m glad you came back,” she said as they walked to nowhere in particular.

“Made you a promise, Miss Parker,” he reminded her easily. “I don’t break my promises.”

“Oh, I didn’t think that,” she assured him, glancing sideways to meet his eyes a moment. “I just... I was worried that we’d be gone before you got to come visit again.”

“Little worried about that myself,” he admitted with a smile. “Alec made me realise if I waited too long, you could be gone, and then... well, then I wouldn’t’ve kept that promise I made.”

Parker nodded that she understood and then spoke again.

“Is Alec family?” she asked curiously.

“Yes and no,” Eliot explained. “It’s like you and your folks, I guess. I don’t have blood family these days, but Alec, well, he’s my brother. You understand?”

“Uh-huh,” Parker smiled. “Tell me about him?”

Eliot wasn’t sure why she would want to know about his friend, or even about him, but he liked that she did. Last visit she had told him all about how she came to be here, about meeting the folks that she saw as family now. He ought to return the favour if that was what she wanted.

Glancing back they way they’d come, he realised what a distance they had already put between themselves and the circled wagons. They kept on walking and they’d be gone miles before long and that wasn’t likely to sit well with Parker’s guardians, Father Nate in particular. Remembering how to be a gentleman, just like his Daddy taught him, Eliot pulled off his coat and laid it out on the ground, offering Miss Parker to sit comfortably.

She smiled sweetly as she did just that, pulling her legs up under her body, bare toes peeking out at the sunshine from under her skirt. Eliot told himself not to focus on that as he dropped down to sit beside her, mindful of how close they were. They were alone, which weren’t exactly right in the first place, but this wasn’t the first time and he couldn’t help hoping it wouldn’t be the last either, whatever kind of a man that made him.

“Okay,” he said, feeling the need to start his story just so his mind was focused elsewhere. “Well, my Momma passed when she birthed me. My Daddy brought me to town to raise me but a lot of folks didn’t want to know him,” he explained, hardly looking at Parker but rather out across the land he felt so much a part of, always. “They couldn’t see past the fact he’d laid with a Cherokee woman. That meant kindness was hard to come by, but there was a neighbour o’ ours, I only ever knew her as Nana,” he smiled at the memory of the kind woman from his past. “She helped out a lot when I was growin’ up. See, she was a slave back in the day, got turned free, and set to helping out any other folks that might need a hand, regardless of colour or creed. Helped to raise me up, and... and I loved her something fierce.”

The story was just pouring out of him, despite the fact he had shared it with exactly no-one the whole course of his thirty years in this world. Men didn’t talk like this, of love and affection for those that raised them, of the ups and downs of their childhood. Eliot certainly weren’t this man, and yet Parker asked him and he wanted her to know all, regardless of what she thought about it after.

“Anyway, when I was maybe nine or ten, another boy come to stay. Reckon he was some relation to Nana, grandson or nephew, I never knew for sure. Even Alec himself can’t be certain to this day. He was just this skinny little kid, all o’ six when he came to us. He just needed somebody to care, I guess. I started playin’ big brother that day and it ain’t ever once occurred to me to stop yet,” he sighed, finally looking at the person to whom he was talking.

Parker was smiling again, looking brighter and prettier than the sun or the view it was lighting up. It was enough to knock every sensible thought clean out of a man’s head, Eliot reckoned.

“That’s nice,” she said of the tale he told. “Beautiful.”

“Thank you, Miss Parker,” he nodded slightly as he stared into her wide blue eyes. “But nothing I said or done could ever be half so beautiful as you.”

The words were out before he barely thought them through, his hand moving up to her face just as absently. Eliot’s fingers barely brushed her cheek when Parker gasped at the sound of her name being yelled. She scrambled to her feet and never stopped a moment to see if her friend had done the same as she hurried towards Father Nate.

“Parker, I need you to come back to the camp, right now,” he said definitely, casting a scathing look over her head at Eliot. “We need to be prepared. We’re leaving first thing tomorrow.”

Eliot watched Nate rush the young woman away, and the ache in his chest intensified. This feeling had been sitting there in the region of his heart since the first moment he saw her, shifting and fluttering each time they talked or got close. Today, without thinking, he had been so close to reaching out and touching Parker, to kissing her maybe, though such a thing would’ve been wrong on every level. Now she was leaving. Not just walking away and leaving him standing, but driving off into the distance and out of his life forever if he didn’t do something. Surely he couldn’t deserve a woman like that, and yet, she hadn’t flinched at all when he tried to get closer. What he did next, he hadn’t an idea and so Eliot looked to the sky for some kind of divine intervention. As the sun warmed his face, he smiled.

* * *

“Excuse me, sir,” said Eliot as he strode up to Father Nate with a purpose.

“Why are you still here?” the older man asked him tiredly, rubbing his forehead as if he were trying to stave off pain. “I know you just heard me tell Parker we’re leaving tomorrow morning. Now, I don’t know what your game is, Ranger Spencer, but...”

“No games, sir,” he said politely as he could despite the fact he would really like to put this man of the cloth in his place right now. “Now I know this is fast, but sometimes you just know what’s right and... and I know you ain’t actually Parker’s pa, but the way she tells it, you’re the closest thing she’s got.”

“Do you have a point, Ranger Spencer?” asked Nate, looking every bit as suspicious as he felt.

He barely glanced at Sophie as she wandered over, but he was very much aware of her presence. Her own focus was on Eliot too, having overheard a little of what he was saying already. If she didn’t know better, she would think he were about to ask for Parker’s hand in marriage.

“My point is that somehow, and I can’t even explain it myself, but somehow I come to love Miss Parker,” he explained, clearing his throat twice before he could go on.

“Love her?” asked Nate, looking almost amused, until Sophie slapped his arm and made him behave.

“Yes, sir,” replied Eliot with the fire of defiance in his eyes as he met Nate’s gaze. “Now you don’t have to like it, but you do have to believe me. I love her and I want to do this right, so I’m asking you, will you let Parker stay here with me? Will you let me ask her to be my wife?”

_To Be Continued..._


	4. Chapter 3 - Endings and Beginnings

Anybody else would have been startled to hear their name spoken behind them in the silence, but not Parker. She was smiling before Eliot Spencer ever called inside the back of the wagon where she was ensuring everything was safely fastened for travel. It was a sense she had, a feeling. She knew when people were following or watching her, she had good instincts out of necessity. Eliot was one of those people she just knew was good, honest, and trustworthy. Parker had that feeling rarely about any person she met, least of all men, but she had it now and stronger than ever. She was so happy to realise Eliot was still here when she was just thinking about how much she herself wished she could stay.

“Hey,” she smiled brightly as she turned to face him. “I thought you left already, but I’m glad you didn’t,” she confessed as she moved to climb out of the back of the wagon.

Eliot reached for her on instinct, taking her by the waist and swinging her down to the ground with ease. Parker felt oddly giddy for such a simple move, but then she really didn’t let guys touch her as a rule. She ran or she lashed out. She didn’t lean into an embrace or blush under a man’s gaze, at least she never had before. Eliot was just different to anyone she ever knew, and the more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t stand the idea of never seeing him again.

“Miss Parker...” he breathed her name, his eyes fixed on her own in such an intense way that she could hardly stand it.

“I don’t want to leave,” she blurted out of the blue, whilst he was still trying to figure out where to begin in asking her to stay.

“You don’t?” he checked. “Well, that’s interestin’, and a good thing, I hope,” he smiled some. “’Cause I really don’t want you to leave either.”

At that Parker smiled again, relieved that she wasn’t just having what Sophie called one of her crazy moments. She liked Eliot a lot and she hoped he liked her too, but Parker wasn’t so good when it came to knowing this type of thing. Sophie said she thought Eliot kept on coming back to camp just to see Parker, but she didn’t want to believe until he said it himself. Now he had, in his own way, and it made her heart beat double time.

“I don’t think Father Nate and Miss Sophie will like it. I mean, they’re pretty set on going West, but... but that’s okay, I’ve been alone in a town before, I can do it again,” Parker shrugged easily, unsure as to why her words seemed to make Eliot frown.

He knew she was different, the Ranger was all too aware of that, but that was a large part of her charm. Parker wasn’t like other women , not the pretty little innocent maids nor the saloon girls he had known too many of over the years. She was as beautiful as any, more so in fact. She was sweet, kind, and at the same time just a little wild and eccentric enough to make life interesting. All in all, Eliot was in love, and he figured the only way to make her understand that was to just come out and say it. Hell, it’d been a long, long time since he needed to find such words as these for a woman, and it really didn’t come so natural as you’d think.

“Miss Parker, I don’t want you to be alone,” he told her straight out. “I... I want you to stay in town with me.”

“Oh,” she reacted with evident surprise. “Well, um... I’d like that, but I don’t think Father Nate would be okay with me just... ‘cause you’re a guy and everything.”

Eliot bit his lip so as not to laugh at her. He didn’t mean to, but her lack of understanding was so adorably amusing.

“I ain’t offering anything inappropriate, Miss Parker,” he promised her, moving one hand up to her face, pushing her wild blonde hair back from her cheek. “I’m pretty sure I went and fell in love with you this past week, so I was wonderin’, how about marryin’ me?”

Eliot would’ve sworn he never saw a persons eyes go as wide as Parker’s did in that moment. Somehow he seemed to have completely stunned her with his confession and question both. Any other woman might’ve seen such a thing coming, at least he would’ve thought so. Parker was just different, but at least she hadn’t said no yet. Truth to tell, she hadn’t said anything at all.

“You wanna marry me?” she asked too seriously. “Me? Parker?”

“Yes, you, Parker,” he assured her, realising he just took the formality out of the way he said her name as easy as that. “I mean, if you wanna think about it, I understand, but... well, we might be a little short on time with Father Nate so dead set on you leaving at first light tomorow.”

“You can’t want to marry me,” she interrupted without even thinking about how wrong that might be. “I mean, men don’t... they don’t look at me that way. Nobody ever even asked me to dance before and now you want to marry me? You want me to be your wife?”

“I do,” he confirmed, nodding once, letting what appeared to be the shock of her life fully sink in.

“And you’d be my husband?” she added.

“That’s the notion,” he smirked slightly, turning her face back towards his when she tried to duck away. “Parker, please. I know I’m not deserving, and don’t wanna make you say anything you don’t want to, but I thought you felt the same.”

“I do,” she answered out of nowhere, making herself laugh apparently. “I don’t think I knew that I did until today when Father Nate said we had to leave, and then I realised I’d never see you again. That felt bad, like really, really bad.”

“I know that feeling,” Eliot agreed, smiling when she leaned her cheek into his touch and moved closer.

“Can we really get married?” she asked him. “After less than a week of knowing each other?”“Works for some folks,” he shrugged easily. “I can’t explain it, Parker. I know we don’t know much about each other yet, but I know enough if you do. I do know I can’t stand the thought of you leavin’ me” he told her honestly. “I never thought I was the marryin’ kind, but I guess I was just waiting for the right woman.”

“And that’s me?” she checked, determined to be absolutely sure.

“That is most definitely you,” he promised her, his breath in her face meaning she felt his words as much as heard them.

“Then, yes,” she smiled. “Yes, Eliot Spencer, I’ll stay and I’ll marry you.”

Parker barely had a chance to breathe before Eliot’s lips were on hers. She knew little of kissing, but if this was how it felt, she liked it a whole lot more than she thought she ever could.

Staying with Eliot ought to be scary, knowing she would watch Nate and Sophie leave tomorrow and maybe never see them again. Parker would miss them because they had been there for her all this time, like the family she never had as a child. Still, she knew she could deal, because she wasn’t a child anymore but a grown woman, and she had Eliot. She was going to be Mrs Spencer and that felt more right than anything else she could ever imagine.

* * *

Eliot never rode a horse so hard his whole life, not even when he was literally riding for his life. It wasn’t so far from the wagon train’s camp to Alec’s place of work, but Eliot still made it in half the time it ought to have taken. The cowboy thought somebody was in trouble the way his Ranger friend came barrelling across the prairie to meet him, but the wide smile on Eliot’s face suggested otherwise.

“What in the whole o’ the world has you grinning like such a crazy person?” he asked with a look.

“You gotta come with me, brother,” Eliot told him, barely stopping a second to draw breath. “I need you to do me a favour.”

“A favour?” asked Alec curiously, spitting his tobacco on the ground. “With what exactly?”

“How’d you like to be best man at my weddin’?”

Alec had no answer to that, not for a full minute. It was difficult to render such a talkative man speechless but apparently Eliot had managed it. He knew this would be a shock. Honestly, it was shocking enough to him when he thought on it much, but Eliot knew he made the right decision. No woman ever made him feel like this, not even the one other he almost married so many years ago. Even she wasn’t quite like Parker, the one person he could see a long and happy future with. If that made him crazy, so be it. They could be crazy together and be perfectly happy for the rest of their lives.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Alec eventually breaking out of his shock-induced silence. “You really do love that Miss Parker, don’tcha?”

“Yes, I do,” Eliot nodded his agreement, his smile never faltering. “But don’t you get too comfortable calling her that. She’d gonna be Mrs Spencer before sundown if you get your ass in gear,” he told him. “See, she has this notion of Father Nate marryin’ us before he leaves, and the man is dead set on tomorrow morning, first light for travelling on.”

“Then what we waitin’ for?” asked Alec, kicking his horse into motion. “We got us a wedding to get to.”

* * *

“Nate, please!” Sophie begged him to be understanding. “Don’t be like this, you’ll break that poor girl’s heart!”

“I’m not the one playing with her affections, Sophie” he told her sternly, concentrating on the horses rather than the woman he spoke to. “That role falls to that Texas Ranger that rode out of here an hour ago. He’ll be the one to break Parker’s heart and we won’t be here to help her. What will happen to her then?”

“Why would you think for a moment that Eliot would hurt her?” Sophie challenged him, the only woman who would ever dare to do such a thing. “If he wanted her for a bit of fun, he would’ve had that days ago. He asked her to stay, to marry him and be with him forever” she said, getting in his way when he tried to walk by her. “Nate, he saved her life the first day we met. He probably saved us all.”

“Oh, I know he’s a hero!” the priest yelled back at her, lowering his voice the moment he realised others in the camp might hear. “Of course he is. The big man, the Texas Ranger. Good for him, but what does he know about taking care of a wife and a family?”

There was a bitterness in his tone and Sophie knew why. He loved Parker like a daughter, though he never let down his guard enough to say so. She helped fill some of the gap left by Maggie and Sam, Nate’s poor dead sister-in-law and nephew. He had become the head of their family, though of course as a man of the cloth he couldn’t marry her himself. If things had been different, Sophie knew it would have been Nate rather than his older brother who married Maggie and raised a child. She doubted it could’ve hurt more to lose them if he had been husband and father to them. Surely now all his venom was just because he was scared of losing Parker, and just a little jealous of Eliot for getting the family life a priest could never hope for. Sophie was standing right here hurting just as badly, both from the impending loss of Parker from her life, and knowing that no matter how much she and Nate loved each other, he would always cling onto his promise to the church and God more than he could cling to her.

“I understand, Nate,” said Sophie then, getting as close as she dare to him right now. “I know how much it hurts you to lose anyone else from your life, but I’m still here,” she promised. “And won’t it be some comfort to know that Parker will have found what she always deserved? True love and a family of her own?”

There wasn’t a way to argue with her and Nate knew it. He always knew she was going to win because she was Sophie, and somehow she never failed to outdo him in any quarrel, big or small. She talked good sense, more sense then he did much of the time. Nate could blame the drink he sometimes imbibed too much, but it was just the same before his addiction started to take over his life.

“I suppose I should feel grateful that Parker wants me to perform the ceremony,” he sighed, running a hand over his tired face.

“That is because she loves you, Nate,” said Sophie with a smile. “You’re the father she never had, and I don’t mean in the way of a priest.”

That at least raised a smile from his lips, albeit a weak one. Sophie was right, as always. He might be losing a daughter in a sense, but she would always be in his heart, and she would carry with her the lessons he had taught her, Nate was sure of that. It didn’t make it any less daunting to realise he was about to marry off a girl he had seen as his own child all these years and putting her in the hands of veritable stranger. He just had to trust that Parker knew what she was doing, and that the good Lord would watch over her when Nate himself could not.

* * *

The ceremony took place in the centre of the camp. All the families travelling together gathered to see a good kind girl marry the hero that saved their whole wagon train. Many would be sorry to have Parker parted from them, but all were elated to see her so happy. She wore a borrowed gown from one of the older married women in the train that had borne no daughters to pass such a dress onto. Eliot stood beside her in his best suit, eyes sparkling brighter in the sunset than even the shining star fastened at his belt could manage. Beside him, Alec held his hat over his heart and tried not to notice that he was being stared at by a barrage of white folk who knew him not.

Sophie cried, and Parker did the same, as Nate finally announced that Eliot Spencer and his dearest girl were now man and wife. All tears were of happiness, of course, but were shed just the same. It was the beginning of a new life together for Eliot and Parker as a kiss sealed their marriage vows as much as two people could in company. At the same time, it marked the ending of another life, as the sun swam on the rim of the hill, all but set. Parker must say goodbye to all her friends and fellow travellers, to the man and woman who had been her family these past ten years together.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m going to miss you so much,” cried Sophie as the two women hugged each other tightly. “But I know you’re going to be so very happy, and that makes it all worthwhile.”

“Thank you,” Parker replied as they parted at last. “For everything.”

She turned towards Nate then and all words failed her. Parker wasn’t sure if he would accept being hugged by her or what he might say. She got a real surprise when he suddenly pulled her too him, however briefly.

“Parker, it’s amazing to look at you now and think of you as you were when I first met you,” he smiled, though tears glistened in his eyes. “You were such a little tearaway and now... now you’re married. I’m... I’m incredibly proud of the woman you’ve become, and I wish you every happiness in the world.”

Parker cried then. She cried for sadness and happiness, all rolled into one. Hugging Sophie and Nate one last time, she turned away to see Eliot waiting for her. Her husband. For that fact alone she began to smile. Alec assisted in getting Parker onto the horse behind Eliot and then they were riding away into a new life together.

There was no way Parker was going to look back, she could only look forward now. Her arms were wrapped around Eliot the whole way to town, her cheek pressed into his back. He was warm and strong, he would protect her when she needed that. At the same time, she trusted that he wouldn’t smother her. In the space of a few brief meetings, they couldn’t know everything about each other, but they knew enough. They could be happy together, somehow Parker believed that, even if she could never properly explain such a thing.

“This is it,” said Eliot, getting her full attention then.

Parker had barely been aware of anything but the horses hooves on the ground and the regular rhythm of their ride to town. Now they were here, and she looked up to see a small rough but sweet looking house. It was Eliot in building form, Parker thought, as he helped her down from the horse, and once again wondered at her only having two bags of worldly possessions.

“This is it,” she echoed his words with a sigh. “My new life.”

“Our new life,” he amended, unlatching the front door and tossing her luggage inside. “You and me, Mrs Spencer,” he said, reaching to take her into his arms.

Parker wasn’t quite ready for it when her suddenly feet left the floor, but laughed long and loud as she was carried over the threshold. She was a wife now and would truly be a woman, she realised, when Eliot set her on her feet and looked very seriously at her.

“You understand that I love you,” he told her, watching as she slowly nodded her head.

“I love you too,” she promised, ready this time when he kissed her and glad of it too.

She had the shakes and couldn’t explain why. Nerves, she supposed, and fear of the unknown, even though Sophie and some of the married women from the camp had assured her she would be fine. Eliot took her to his bed and laid her down, making love to her with a gentleness no-one would suspect a man like him could find within. Parker had never known a feeling like it, as if she wanted to cry and laugh all at the same time.

Afterwards, she lay in his arms in the dark, warm and content as she had ever been her whole life. When he asked if she was okay, she could barely find the words to reply.

“More than okay,” she whispered at last. “Perfect.”

He kissed the top of her head and held her close as they both fell asleep. Though it was the end of this day, it heralded a new beginning, the start of their life together. Eliot and Parker Spencer, which no man could put asunder, until death should part them.


	5. Chapter 4 - Time Passes By

Parker was crying when Eliot came home. It occurred to her to hide it from him, since men rarely liked tears, and she wasn’t sure yet her reason would be something he wanted to hear. They’d only been married a few months and Parker loved her new life. It had taken some adjustment, being stuck in one place all the time, but Eliot took her out of town often enough. They picnicked on the prairie, rode or walked around for hours. She trusted his good horse, Blue, as much as she trusted her darling husband, and they had the most wonderful days out in the sun and the warm breezes of Summer. Now Fall was here, the winds were getting stronger, the days shorter, and Parker had news to share.

Dinner was less of a disaster tonight. Parker never had been much of a cook, but always put the effort in. By comparison, Eliot was a wonder in the kitchen and set to teaching Parker all she didn’t know. Even Alec leant a hand sometimes. Both boys had been taught by Nana growing up and they knew so much more than Parker. They were both patient with her, and helped her a lot. She had come to love Alec like a brother in no time at all.

Parker preferred when she was alone with Eliot if she were honest, especially when he wanted to teach her new things. He had taught her so very much, and not just in the kitchen. She knew so much of love now, of caring and sharing, of running a home, and of physically proving the love that existed between a man and his wife. The thought of it even now made her shiver, her hand going absently to her stomach. She really hadn’t thought about this part of marriage until now. It made her want to laugh and cry all at the same time, and Eliot found her in such a confused state when he came through the door a moment later.

“Parker? Darlin’, what’s wrong?” he asked, rushing to her.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, seemingly hysterical with laughter and tears, though she didn’t try to escape when he pulled her into his arms. “Eliot, I... I’m just so confused, and I don’t know what you’re going to think.”

Eliot only ever saw Parker cry twice. Today in this moment, and their first night together when the deluge of emotions from the biggest day of her life had reduced her to tears. This seemed like happy crying too, and yet he couldn’t help but worry.

“Sweetheart, talk to me,” he urged her, his dirty calloused hand at her cheek, making her look at him. “Please, tell me what’s goin’ on.”

“I saw the doctor today,” she explained, swallowing hard. “He said I’m going to have a baby.”

When she crumpled to tears right after her announcement, Eliot didn’t know what to think. He was elated to know he was going to be a father, and yet Parker seemed pained by such a thing.

“Hey, you don’t have to be scared, Parker,” he promised her, holding her close and rubbing her back. “I’m right here. Gonna be here always, like we promised on our wedding day.”

“It’s not that,” she said, her words muffled into the shoulder of his coat. “It’s not about the baby, or it is but...” she tried to explain, bringing her head up and wiping her face with her hands. “Eliot, I never had a mother. How can I raise a child? Nobody even raised me and look how I turned out,” she said sadly.

Eliot put a finger under her chin and brought her eyes to meet his one more time.

“I think you turned out just fine,” he told her in the gentlest voice that he kept especially for her. “You’re my beautiful, crazy, wonderful wife, and I love you. You’re gonna learn how to be a mother, just like you learned to be a wife, and I promise, everything is gonna be just fine.”

She believed him. Parker always believed Eliot when he told her such things, and she wasn’t going to start doubting him now. He was her husband, and the only one she could ever imagine having. She moved to kiss him then, not caring that he was all dust-covered from his ride home. He didn’t seem to mind if dinner waited a while either. They had celebrating to do.

* * *

Eliot had never been so nervous his whole life. He had stared down the barrel of a gun more often than he liked, been showered with arrows by a tribe that knew him not, and he’d done it with a smile and an easy heart. Nothing scared him like losing Parker, and right now he was terrified.

“Women been birthin’ children as long as the world’s turned,” Alec tried to reassure him, even as Parker’s screamed echoed from the bedroom.

“Yeah,” Eliot nodded absently. “And women have died doin’ it that long too,” he said, shooting Alec a look he immediately recognised.

Eliot’s mother had died in childbirth and now he feared the same for his dear wife. Parker was strong though, stronger than any other woman Alec ever knew that was for sure, with the possible exception of his Nana. He had faith, since that was all there was to have anyhow. He and Eliot were wishing, hoping, and praying just as hard as they could that things ran smooth, that the doc or Miss Cora was about to come out of that room and say everything was just fine.

“She’s stronger than she looks,” Eliot told himself more than anyone. “She can do this.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Alec agreed.

Almost as if it were a response to their words, the cry of a child was suddenly heard. In a second, Miss Cora was rushing at them, with a grin on her face as wide as anything.

“It’s a boy. Eliot, you have a son!”

She was giddy before he picked her up and spun her three times at least with her feet clear off the ground. Alec was laughing with relief and thanking the Lord, shaking hands with Eliot and the doctor too just as soon as he appeared.

Eliot couldn’t wait to get to his wife and child, and yet when he saw Parker sat up in the bed holding their little bundle, he stopped stock-still. They were a sight to behold, that was for sure. Parker had a tendency to look like a angel on any given day, but tonight she fairly glowed as he looked upon her.

“Hey,” she smiled brightly when she saw him, even though she was obviously exhausted. “Come say hi to your son.”

Eliot thought he was nervous before the baby was born, now he was ever more so as he approached the two people in the world that meant everything to him. Parker had been so strong and yet looked so fragile right now, the baby so small and pink, Eliot was afraid that breathing too close might break either of them, but Parker wanted him closer, wanted him to meet their son.

“I can’t believe it,” she said, leaning into him when he carefully sat down on the edge of the bed and put his arm around her shoulders. “He’s so tiny, and he’s us. Half you and half me,” she said, gazing first at the baby and then up to meet Eliot’s eyes. “Isn’t that amazing?”

“Sure is,” he agreed with a dumb grin that wouldn’t shift. “Hey there, son,” he greeted the baby, carefully reaching out to the little boy’s hand with one finger.

A tiny fist grabbed onto that finger and gripped so tight. Eliot was so amazed and so ridiculously moved.

“He needs a name,” Parker yawned. “I can’t believe this day came and we didn’t decide yet.”

“We’ll get there,” said Eliot absently, echoing words Alec had spoken during the long and painful birth. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“Oh” Parker gasped then, staring down at the tiny child in her arms. “How about that? How about calling him Will?”

Eliot was about to tell her that was crazy and he hadn’t meant it like that, but honestly, it seemed to suit the little man somehow.

“William Spencer, huh?” he said, still smiling uncontrollably.

“William Eliot Spencer,” Parker insisted, wearing that look she got on her face sometimes that was not to be trifled with.

“William Eliot Spencer,” he agreed, gently hugging his wife closer and marvelling at this baby boy that was there very own. “Our Will.”

* * *

“William Eliot Spencer!” Parker yelled right out of the front door.

A shame-faced five year old soon showed himself from round back of the house, dirt on his cheek and a tear in the sleeve of his shirt. It was the look on his face, like he was just going to burst into tears any second, that coupled with the fact he looked so much like Eliot sometimes, it meant Parker never could stay mad at him.

“’M sorry, mama,” the little boy told her as he reached her side. “Me an’ uncle Alec was just playin’...”

“Uh-huh,” Parker still tried to look stern but couldn’t quite manage it, especially when Alec appeared from around back too, almost looking a worse state than his nephew.

“That boy,” he said, with a shake of his head. “I swear, gonna be as tough as his Daddy when he’s grown.”

It seemed there had been some kind of tussle, a play-fight, Parker guessed. Alec looked as if he’d been warring a crazy critter with claws and teeth rather than a sweet little five year old boy. Maybe Will was going to be just as strong as Eliot some day, but right now he also needed his education.

“I’d like him to be as smart as Daddy too,” she said pointedly to her son. “I don’t think the alphabet ends with K, Will.”

She showed him the slate he’d left on the table, the last mark being not quite an L before he’d clearly bolted to go and play. Alec looked as apologetic as Will did in his own way.

“I’m sorry, Parker,” he told her, having long ago started calling her by just the one name, like any brother would. “Hadn’t an idea he was meant to be studying.”

“That’s okay,” she smiled. “You wanna come in for some coffee while Will finishes his letters?”

Alec accepted and the three went inside. Parker never missed the looks she got from the neighbours for letting a black man into her house, most especially when her husband wasn’t home. She paid no mind to their glares or their whispers. She loved Alec like a brother, just the same as Eliot did. She would never turn him away just because other people thought it was wrong for him to be here. Anyone decent had welcomed Parker to town and loved her, Alec, Eliot, and Will as much as anyone ever could. Those that didn’t, well, they never meant a thing to Parker.

Still she stopped on the front porch and stared a while, not at the people who stared back at her, but towards the horizon beyond. Eliot had ridden out early this morning, trouble at the border that needed attending too. He had hoped to be back before sundown, but the evening was drawing in fast and there was no sign yet. Parker didn’t want to worry about him, but her heart couldn’t help it sometimes.

“Okay,” she said then, painting on a smile as she headed inside. “How’s the rest of that alphabet coming along?”

Four hours later...

The sky had darkened considerably. It was much later than it should’ve been, considering five year old Will had only just now been put to bed, and Eliot still wasn’t home. Things were not as they should be, and Parker couldn’t settle. She had snapped at Alec three times when he tried to tell her everything would be fine, though she didn’t mean it. He understood, he always did. She told him to go home a while back. He had to be up early in the morning and Old Mr McRory would have his hide if he was in no fit state at the ranch tomorrow. Alec had left under duress, and Parker had put her son to bed, promising Daddy would be back by the time he woke in the morning. She felt bad making such a promise that she didn’t know that she could keep. She was getting more and more worried about her husband as time rolled by and the world grew dark. The clock on the mantle, that had run five minutes slower than any other since the day they bought it, had just gone past midnight. Parker felt increasingly sick.

Suddenly the sound of hooves had her attention. Not the speedy gallop with which Eliot’s dear horse Blue usually came into town, but slow and awkward. Still, she was sure it had to be them and rushed for the door to check. The sight that met her eyes made her heart constrict. A combination of sheer relief that Eliot was finally home safe, and panic because of the state he was in.

“Parker,” her name was all of a sigh on his lips as he dropped down from the horse’s back and hit the dust with a thud, barely on his feet.

“Eliot,” she cried as she ran to him. “Oh my God, what happened?” she asked, clearly panicked and rightly so.

“Ain’t as bad as it looks, darlin’,” he promised her, which might’ve been some comfort if he could walk without her help.

Parker helped Eliot inside and sat him down at the table. He insisted she go see to Blue before anything else, ensure he was fed and watered. Eliot said they were only so late home because the poor boy was so very tired and over-ridden. Parker did as she was asked, though she hated to take her eyes off Eliot for a moment. Her concern doubled, even tripled when she caught sight of herself in the half-light of the moon outside. There was blood on her dress and her apron, far too much blood. Parker swallowed hard, dealt with the horse and then came rushing back inside.

“Eliot, I have to fetch the doctor,” she said, only realising her own tears when she tried to speak and the words came out choked.

“No, don’t go bothering him,” Eliot shook his head, trying to sit up more in the chair and finding it difficult. “Man works hard enough. It’s just a few scratches. I’ll be fine, if you’ll help me, sweetheart.”

Parker nodded her agreement because the words wouldn’t come anymore. She fetched a bowl of fresh water and clean rags, the meagre medical supplies that she kept in the house. She had cleaned up wounds for Eliot before, but usually it was just one of his so-called scratches, this was a lot more. Cuts and gashes on one arm, a leg, a graze across his shoulder that was way too close for Parker’s comfort, and a lot of blood on his face that Eliot promised was not half so bad as it looked. The cut above his lip was minor really, it had just bled like crazy, apparently.

It took a long time for Parker to carefully clean up her husband’s wounds and bandage what wouldn’t quit bleeding or might get infected if left. She hated every second because she knew she caused him more pain doing it, even if he did try to hide it. He looked so tired when she was done, but he was still Eliot, still enough in one piece to come home to her. It didn’t stop her from wanting to cry.

“Hey,” he caught her wrist when she got up to clear things away. “C’mere, Parker,” he pulled her into his lap and didn’t even flinch when she suddenly hugged him tight.

Somehow it just didn’t hurt when it was her.

“I thought you were gone,” she cried into his bare shoulder, shirt long since removed so she could better tend his wounds. “This time I really thought...”

“Hey now,” he said, making her look at him, his hand at her cheek. “I have you and Will to come back to, so I am always gonna fight to get home any way I can, you hear me? Always.”

Parker nodded dumbly and found a weak smile. She believed him, more than she ever believed anybody telling her anything. If there came a day when Eliot couldn’t make it home it would not be for the want of trying. He loved her just as much as she loved him, and they both loved their son unconditionally. They’d fight hell and high water to be back together if they were parted, that counted for Parker as much as it did for Eliot.

“Take me to bed?” she said him in a whisper, realising a second later what it sounded like she was asking for when he was hardly in a fit state. “Just hold me, Eliot. I need to know you’re there.”

He had no problem with that at all, and that night the couple fell asleep as they did most times, wrapped in each others embrace. Life was never easy for them, not in the beginning and not now, almost six years since they made their wedding vows. Still, just so long as they had each other and their boy, a happy little family unit, they would do fine.

_To Be Continued..._


	6. Chapter 5 - Ghosts from the Past

Parker couldn’t stop smiling as she read her letter over again. This was the sixth time and of course the words hadn’t changed since this morning, but the contents of this particular letter just made her so damn happy. She got word from Sophie and Nate fairly regular, and tried to write back as much as she could. There was always news to tell and she even sent drawings she had sketched for them to see. At first, they were quaint little things of flowers from the prairie or parts of the house. Later she started sending her best portraits of Will and even Eliot. Sophie told her how wonderful it was, but unfortunately not quite the same as seeing everyone for real. Finally it seemed the time had come when they would all meet again.

Several years ago, when Will was still small, there had been a trip planned. Unfortunately, right around that time Father Nate got sick, and it was so long before he could travel again, the whole plan just got put on hold. Money troubles followed, and then Parker and Eliot went through hard times. No time was a good one for either side of this make-shift family. Now, finally, the stars seemed to aligning. Sophie and Nate had started making their trip and would arrive in town barely ten days from now.

“Momma! You’ll never guess...” Will was saying as he came rushing in through the front door.

“Oh, Will,” Parker was laughing and crying a she ran to him and hugged him tight. “I’ve been waiting all day to share this with someone. Nate and Sophie are finally coming to visit!” she told him giddily.

“Really? They’re really comin’ this time?” he smiled brightly up at his mother, blue eyes sparkling just like Eliot’s always did when he looked like that.

“They really are,” she agreed. “Oh, they’re not going to believe how tall you’ve got,” she sighed as she stepped back to look at the twelve year old before her. “The last sketch I sent was years ago and it didn’t really do you justice then.”

“All your sketches are perfect, Momma,” he told her seriously. “Better than even those photograph pictures the fancy people have taken, I reckon.”

Parker smiled at that. Will was so sweet sometimes, so complimentary and kind to her. He was a little version of his father, all charm and easy manners. She never knew she could love anyone as much as she loved her husband but her son clinched it. Life without either of them would seem crazy and awful now. To have Eliot, Will, and Alec too, plus Sophie and Nate coming to visit, Parker just couldn’t ask for anything more.

“Oh, I can’t wait for you to meet them!” she said happily then, clearly back on the topic of Nate and Sophie. “They were the closest thing I ever had to family until I met your Daddy and Uncle Alec.”

Will’s smile started to fade slightly then, though since Parker had turned away to the stove to work on dinner, she didn’t actually notice. With her letter tucked safely in the pocket of her apron, she concentrated on fixing the stew and baking the potatoes without burning them. She really was pretty good at cooking these days. Still, perhaps right now she should be giving a little less attention to her pans and more to her son.

“You think they’ll like me, Momma?” asked Will, looking awfully thoughtful when Parker looked at him then. “I mean, Daddy doesn’t seem to think they like him much... Well, Father Nate didn’t anyhow.”

“Will, they’ll love you, like they love me!” said Parker definitely. “I can’t say that they love your Daddy because they don’t know him so well, and I think Father Nate kind of wished I’d’ve stayed with him and Miss Sophie instead of getting married...” she considered. “But it’ll be fine. Better than fine,” she smiled brightly as she pulled him close and kissed the top of his head. “You and your Daddy are the very best things in my whole life. The only things I really ever did right was getting married and raising you.”

Will hugged his mother tightly then, looking up at her with a boyish version of Eliot’s own proud smile.

“I think you did a lot of things right, Momma,” he told her definitely. “Nobody could look after me and Daddy half as good as you do. He says so too, y’know.”

“I say what now?” asked Eliot himself as he came in through the door, catching the tail end of the conversation.

“How Momma looks after us so good,” Will told him from beneath Parker’s arm still. “Ain’t she just the best ever?”

“That she is, son,” he agreed easily, though his eyes were fixed on his wife rather than the boy he spoke to “Always has been and always will be.”

Parker blushed a pretty pink, something that rarely happened to her, but if anyone could cause it, it was these two being so kind. She shook it off a moment later, quick to tell Eliot about her exciting letter from Sophie and Nate. He looked a little underwhelmed about it, but painted on a smile because he knew how much it meant to her. This was Parker’s family, closest she had to parents, and it would mean the world to her to have them come meet her real family as they were now, husband and child.

The family shared a pleasant evening, Eliot and Parker telling Will the story of how they met once again. He had heard it so many times and yet never tired of it being told to him once more. His father the hero and his mother the blushing bride. To Will they were everything, his whole world, the people he aspired to be one day, with a wife of his own. He only hoped to be the man his father had become, to meet a woman as kind and wonderful as his mother. He said as much before he took himself off to bed that night. Such a sentiment made Parker smile and yet when she looked to Eliot he was frowning too much.

“What’s that look for?” she asked in genuine puzzlement.

“What? Nothin’,” he shook it off, but Eliot continued muttering something else Parker couldn’t quite hear as he went outside.

She figured he was going to check on Blue or similar, but he didn’t come back for over an hour and she was already in bed. Parker would’ve asked him where he’d been or if something was wrong, but didn’t feel the need to. He climbed into bed beside her, pulling her body close to his own, and kissing her shoulder.

“G’night, darlin’,” he whispered.

“Goodnight, Eliot,” she replied with a smile before letting sleep claim her.

It was barely two hours later that Parker would wake again to a violent shaking feeling through her whole body. Immediately she knew something was wrong as Eliot thrashed around beside her, rocking the whole bed. He’d had nightmares before, but this was worse than ever. He was moaning and cussing, throwing his arms around so much, Parker was worried about getting hit. Still, she had to help him, wake him from the terror as she had done before, as he had done oh so many times for her. Ducking under his arm on the next swing, she put her hands on his chest and shook him hard.

“Eliot!” she said as loud as she dare, as determined not to wake Will as she was to rouse her husband.

Out of nowhere, he sat bolt up right. It was a credit to Parker’s quick reactions that she got out of the way before he clobbered her by accident. Eliot’s eyes popped open, wide and blood-shot, with tears streaming down his cheeks still. He was breathing as heavy as if he just sprinted a mile, and Parker never saw him look more terrified.

“It’s okay,” she said gently, reaching out a tentative hand to his face. “Eliot, it’s okay, you were just dreaming...”

“No,” he shook his head, swallowing hard when his voice came out hoarse. “No, I was remembering.”

He was out of bed in a flash and practically running for the door. Parker really didn’t know what to think, never mind what to do. Eliot had nightmares before and after she woke him up he seemed to get over it pretty fast. She asked if he wanted to talk about it but he rarely did. Usually it was recalling fights to the death, situations he didn’t want Parker to have to think about. She let it go because truth be told she really didn’t want to hear, and if he didn’t want to share either, it was kinder not to push, or so she always thought. She spoke little of her own nightmares, borne out of old fears jumbling with new ones. Her mind would recall her days on the streets, mix up unsavoury people and situations she had known then with the love in her life now, bringing danger and panic to Eliot and Will or Alec. The destruction of her happy home was all she feared and all that haunted her. These days such nightmares were rare and she barely remembered the last time Eliot woke in such a state either. Certainly wh at she could recall was never so bad as this had been.

Hopping out of bed, she cared not for propriety as she hurried after Eliot. She found him downstairs, looking out of the open front door. He wore only his sleeping pants, and the cool night breeze blew his hair in all directions. The scars on his back were a map Parker knew well, all the wounds she had tended and a few others from before with stories she had heard a hundred times. She moved up close behind him, gently laid her hands on his back to let him know she was there, though Parker was convinced Eliot already knew, because he always did.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, even as she slid her arms around him from behind and rested her forehead between his shoulder blades.

“It’s not your fault you had a nightmare,” she said softly, feeling his muscles tense beneath her touch. “But I don’t understand why this one was so bad. Eliot, you have to trust me,” she told him, slipping around under his arm where it held the door open. “You have to talk to me.”

“Parker, you know I trust you,” he sighed, looking down to meet her bright still-innocent eyes. “But you don’t wanna hear this.”

“I do,” she nodded, even though they both knew deep down she would rather not know. “I wanna hear it because you need to tell someone, and I’m your wife so I’m the logical choice.”

He smiled softly at that, putting his hand to her cheek.

“You pick your times to be logical, darlin’,” he told her, pushing her unruly hair back off her face.

She didn’t smile back. Whatever joke he was trying to make, however he tried to compliment her or change the subject, Parker couldn’t let it be. This had gone on too long and tonight it had been the worst nightmare ever. There were memories in Eliot’s head too much to bear and she needed to know what they were. Sophie always said talking about things usually made them seem not so bad. Parker didn’t know for sure if that was true for everybody and everything that bothered them, but it was all she had to go on right now. She had to try to help Eliot, she just had to.

They moved back inside, letting the door close. Eliot sat Parker down in her rocking chair by the fireplace, even though the flames had long since died. He dropped down onto the floor at her feet and took a deep breath, pushing his long hair back out of his face. He never wanted to have this talk with her, not ever, but she was right, he did need to get it out, especially now. She was the only one he would completely trust with the truth of his past, and how desperately sorry he was to have it be a part of him.

“I told you everything about my start in life, and an awful lot about how things were with me being a Ranger,” he said eventually. “I let you think that one part of my life just drifted easily into the other, but that ain’t exactly how it was,” he sighed.

Parker didn’t say a word, even when Eliot looked away and fell silent a while. She reached out a hand to his shoulder, a touch of comfort perhaps, or encouragement if that was what he needed. He reached to pick up that hand of hers and kissed her knuckles. Holding onto her fingers in his own gave Eliot the strength to carry on.

“I was just about grown when my Daddy passed on,” he smiled sadly. “All o’ twenty, with Alec still to care for. Nana had gone two years before, and that just left us two boys. You’d think we got all the closer then, but that weren’t so. I tried to be so grown up, so very much Alec’s Daddy when I wasn’t even close. He kicked off something spectacular about it, thought he could do just as well without me watchin’ over his shoulder,” he shook his head sadly. “Y’know for almost two years we barely spoke a word to each other.”

Parker’s eyes were wide at such a revelation. She could scarcely believe the two who had always been as brothers could ever had gone through such a time as to not speak that amount of time.

“We never talk about it now, and not just ‘cause we both come to admit we was as pig-headed as each other back then,” said Eliot with a smile that couldn’t make it all the way to his eyes.

The bright blue sparkling diamonds that usually stared up at Parker any other time were suddenly dark pools of despair as he continued on.

“I got led astray, Parker. Weren’t like I shouldn’t’ve known better but... well, these men rode into town, all fanciful and smart. They could drink anyone in town under the table, shoot a can off a fence a quarter mile away, and... and I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be a man,” he shrugged. “That was when I signed on with Damien Moreau.”

The gasp from Parker proved she knew how bad this story was about to get. Moreau was known enough for his crimes now, but back then his reputation wasn’t so big. Young Eliot Spencer had seen wonder and adventure when that man came in to town with his gang.

“I proved myself worthy of that posse and when they rode outta town, I went with ‘em,” Elliot explained, a far away look in his eyes as he stared into the middle-distance. “I was an asset to Moreau. He said good looking and charming as I was, that’d come in handy. Plus he found out about my Momma being Cherokee, me knowin’ about the land and how to read the weather and all. I was useful to him, his favourite pet.”

There was a shake in his voice and it brought tears to Parker’s eyes. She never knew Eliot to be scared of anything, but right now he was terrified just talking about the shadows of his past. She could relate to that on some level, but she feared what he might tell her next. Still, she couldn’t help but ask.

“What happened?” she said, trying to be calm, trying harder not to actually cry.

“I come to realise that these were not righteous men I was ridin’ with,” Eliot told her, swallowing hard. “I told myself, a little theft was okay. Had myself believin’ what Moreau and his men told me, that we was taking from those that deserve to lose it, that we were helping those less fortunate. Little over a year before I got the real truth, when... when I watched them shoot down a family in front of my eyes. An innocent man, a wife and his children, Parker!” he said too loudly, tears on his cheeks once again.

Parker dropped out of the chair and grabbed him up in her arms holding on tight. The horrors she was hearing were bad enough, but knowing Elliot had seen it, had been a part of it, it scared her to death.

“I tried to leave then,” Eliot cried into her shoulder. “I wanted to run but I had nowhere and nobody to run toward. I stayed because Moreau said it was a one-off, that these folk had it coming, but I knew it was wrong, I knew!”

“It’s okay,” Parker told him, fingers stroking through his hair, rocking him like a child in her arms. “It was a long time ago.”

“You don’t understand,” he told her, pulling out of her arms and looking her right in the eye. “I knew what he was doing, Parker. He kept me away from the worst of it because he knew how it made me feel, how close I come to turnin’ on ‘em all, but I knew. They killed innocent people and then... and then they laughed about it. They laughed about women screaming and children crying, and I hated every one of those monsters that I thought had been men,” he explained. “One day it was too much and I... I snapped. I just, I had to get out, but when I tried, they surrounded me.”

Parker couldn’t stop shaking. Her instinct was to run from this truth he as about to tell her and yet she couldn’t do it. Eliot needed to tell her this, needed to let it out and have it be over once and for all. She held his gaze but she couldn’t breathe, not at all.

“I shot ‘em, Parker. In cold blood,” he confessed at last. “Every ounce o’ rage in me just ignited and... and I shot ‘em. I don’t know if they lived or died, I never stayed to find out. I shot five men, Moreau included, and I rode until neither me nor my horse could go on anymore.”

He fell back into Parker’s arms and she just held on tight. She knew Eliot had to be brutal in his line of work, that men had died at his hand, but that had always been in the name of justice and peace. Hearing he had potentially killed five men so long ago, not for the sake of the law but if his own accord, that was hard to know about the gentle, caring man she loved. Still, she knew Moreau by reputation and those that worked for him had to be as evil as any she ever heard of. Eliot did the world a service the day he took them out, though there was nothing to say any had actually died. Moreau still lived, that much she knew for sure, though the rumour was he had gone East a long time ago, never to return to this place.

“Eliot,” she said when they both finally stopped crying. “Eliot, listen to me,” she insisted, moving back onto her heels and taking his face in her hands. “I love you,” she told him what he ought to know but bared repeating right now. “You hear me? I don’t care about any of what you did before, because I love you, always.”

A watery smile curved his lips for all of a second before the expression collapsed in on itself quickly.

“What on God’s green Earth did I ever do to deserve you, darlin’?” he asked her desperately, clinging to her like a drowning man still.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “All I know is we found each other and we belong together because we love each other. Our wagon train was meant to stop here, you were meant to save me. If our pasts hadn’t been what they were, we wouldn’t be here like this now.”

Eliot wondered at her wisdom sometimes. She seemed so young and naive when he met her all those years ago, and yet had proved to be so strong and even resourceful. The lessons she had learnt in life, the way she seemed to know so much and so little all at once never failed to amaze him. The only thing guaranteed to floor him even more easily than any of this was her unwavering love for a man like him.

“I love you so much, Parker,” he promised her, kissing her forehead. “And I wish to God our pasts were all we had to worry on,” he sighed then.

The look on her face proved that Parker did not understand yet.

“That day I ran from Moreau’s gang, well, you know as well as I do even if the others died that day, he never did,” Eliot explained.

“But he’s way out East...” she shook her head, not allowed to finish her sentence before he cut in.

“No, he was out East, even disappeared for a while, some folks even thought he was dead but he’s not,” her husband corrected her. “Quinn got back from visitin’ his folks in Chicago today. Talk out that way is that Moreau is back. He rounded up a gang again and has been hittin’ banks and trains all across Illinois and the Missouri territory. He’s gettin’ closer all the time, Parker.”

“Well, maybe Jonah is mistaken” she shook her head. “Maybe the rumours he heard were wrong.”

Parker knew it was foolish to even say such a thing. Jonah Quinn was a good man, a Texas Ranger alongside Eliot, but some of his connections were questionable at best and down-right criminal at worst. What he heard was usually true, and if Moreau was rumoured to be headed for Texas, here was where he would be before too long.

“Will talks about wantin’ to be just like me, and it makes my blood run cold,” said Eliot sadly. “Parker, if Moreau comes back here, if he comes lookin’ for me, and finds you and our son...”

“It won’t happen,” she said, holding on tight to her husband. “Nothing is going to happen to me or to Will, Eliot. You won’t let it happen, I trust that. I trust you.”

“After everything I just told you,” he stared at her in wonder. “How?”

“Because I love you” she repeated. “I love you so much. I love you.”

She said the words over and over as she kissed his face and held on tight. There was no way on this Earth she was going to let him believe anything else but the deepest love that existed between them. He kissed her back in equal measure, the worst emotions of the night turning into something so much better. They sought and gave comfort, one to another, heading back to their bed and making love through the dark hours that followed.

To hell with what tomorrow brought. Tonight, in amongst the shadows of the past, they found a little piece of Heaven to hang onto, no matter what the future brought to them next.


	7. Chapter 6 - Hero Takes A Fall

They never spoke about Moreau again. Parker never wanted to have to bring it up, and was sure Eliot wouldn’t either. In front of Will, they were the same as ever and he never suspected anything had happened in the night before. If bad things were coming, well, then they’d have to deal with them. In the meantime, there was no use worrying about what might never be. Eliot said as much on a completely separate topic when talking to Will about school, and yet his eyes drifted to Parker and met her gaze - she knew his meaning was much more serious.

Damien Moreau was so notorious, everyone who ever heard of him had been glad when he seemed to disappear. There were rumours he was captured or killed, even that he left the country altogether and sailed far away. All was wishful thinking it seemed. He had just been laying low for whatever reasons a monster like him had to do so. Now he was crawling out of the woodwork, potentially coming after any and all that had once wronged him. It gave Parker the shakes to think about it, so she tried not to.

The truth of it was that the curiosity would’ve killed her if she didn’t bring it up at least once. She had to ask Alec what he knew, and so one evening when Eliot had ridden out late to deal with some trouble, leaving his brother at home to watch over his family, Parker asked what he knew. They spoke in whispers whilst Will slept on upstairs, and Alec confessed he was all too aware that he was the very man Eliot rode out of town with all those years ago. It was clear to Parker, however, that Alec had no clue what had happened the day Eliot escaped the clutches of the notorious outlaw.

“The nightmares were bad,” he explained, looking as sad as Parker ever saw him. “Never saw a man so afraid o’ somethin’ that wasn’t even there, and Eliot, man, he’s the strongest I ever known,” he shook his head. “He had to be, what you might call rehabilitated into the town. I don’t know exactly what he did or what he saw, I never asked ‘cause I knew he didn’t wanna tell me anyhow,” he sighed. “I just now how hard it was for him.”

“But the town accepted him back,” said Parker with a frown still. “Didn’t everybody know who he left with?”

“Not really,” Hardison told her honestly. “Some guessed maybe that was where he went to, but I always told a different story. I didn’t want anybody thinkin’ bad o’ my brother, not even when he left the way he did. Ain’t the way menfolk are meant to talk, but I love that man as if he was my blood. Always.”

Parker had only nodded at that, afraid of speaking in case she cried again. Alec had suffered through this almost as much as anyone. She thought it was beautiful how much Eliot and Alec, loved each other like family. She knew it was an even tighter bonder than she had with Father Nate and Miss Sophie. It was such a comfort to her to have another man around, especially when Eliot had to be away working, out late on some dangerous task. The adult company was nice, and these days Alec was as much her brother too. Nobody’s opinion in the town bothered her, fussing because she and Eliot saw a black man as their family. The world would change someday, Eliot always said, and in the meantime, all they could hope to do was not let the world change them.

Father Nathan would hate to know all this was happening. The world and his faith had shaped his views, and then the sucker-punch of losing first his brother, then Maggie and Sam. Illness, hard times, money problems, they had all added to his bitterness, Parker was sure, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t looking forward to his coming to visit. He and Sophie meant the world to her, and as grumpy as Nate might be, Sophie had always and would always balance him out with her sunshine smile. She had greater faith than Nate sometimes, despite not being a truly religious person. Faith came in different forms, she had once told Parker. Right now, Parker was just trying to hold onto enough faith in Eliot and their family, in their ability to avoid Damien Moreau and his possible vendetta for a good long while yet. She tried to have faith, but it didn’t come easily.

They all acted normally for the week that followed Eliot’s confession, but it was clear to Eliot and Parker, if no-one else, that things were different. When he came in from work, she hugged him a little tighter, kissed him a little longer. At night, they made love more often and more passionately, as if every time might be the last chance to hang on to each other.

The world outside saw no change in the couple, or their family life. Each day Eliot rode out with Jonah and the other Rangers, Will was sent to school as usual, and Parker went about her daily chores. The house was clean, the laundry done, the vegetables tended, and the groceries fetched from the store. Still, through all this, there was just a niggling worry in the back of Parker’s mind.

Being a Ranger’s wife never came easy. If he was anywhere but home when darkness fell, if he was called out in the night to go deal with trouble, a knot of panic settled in Parker’s stomach and would not shift until he came home again. She hardly ever spoke of it, because it wouldn’t be fair. He had his job to do and Parker was so very proud of Eliot for being the man he was now. Knowing as she did what he had overcome to be this good man, everything he went through with Moreau, she just couldn’t love him more, but panic still set in at times, unbidden and unwelcome as it was.

It was a Thursday and late in the evening. Will had finished up his homework whilst Parker made dinner, and Alec showed up to ask Eliot a favour that had to do with the ranch. Things were getting busy and Mr McRory couldn’t afford any extra hands, but Eliot would always help out if he could. When he found his brother not at home, Parker offered for Alec to come in and wait, join them for dinner as he had so many times before.

Over their meal, Will waxed lyrical about the essay he had read aloud in school today. He was so proud of it, especially since he received an A, and Parker was sure she stopped breathing altogether when he got up then to read it to her and his Uncle Alec. It was entitled ‘My Father, the Hero’ and was all about Eliot being a Texas Ranger, how he saved lives and fought crime. On any day it would have been overwhelming to hear how much the boy loved his Daddy. It was ever more so when Parker was worrying so much about her husband who had yet to come home.

The hours were ticking by too fast and too slow in equal measure somehow. Parker wanted Eliot home, dreading what was happening for as long as he was out there in the ever darkening night. Her husband, Will’s father, the hero who carried so much fear and shame inside that his son knew nothing of from those dark days with Moreau and after.

“That was beautiful, Will,” Parker told him when his essay was done. “I know your father would love to hear it too, but that’ll have to wait until tomorrow now. Time for bed,” she urged him.

“Momma, I’m almost thirteen years old!” he complained, whining like the small child he professed not to be. “I can stay up a little longer and wait for him, can’t I?”

“Will, please, don’t argue!” she yelled back at him, immediately regretting her tone.

Parker knew it wasn’t his fault, not at all, and taking it out on him was unfair. Taking a deep breath she tried to speak more evenly then.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised. “Will, I am, but I really did need you to go to bed right now,” she told him with the best smile she could muster. “I promise you can read your essay to your father tomorrow, but it’s late now. Uncle Alec has to get home, and I could use getting to bed soon myself. So say goodnight, please.”

Will wasn’t sure what had his Momma in such a mood. He knew she got anxious when Daddy didn’t come home and the hour got late, but this was different. Everything had been different this past week, though he couldn’t say what or why exactly. He asked Momma if she was okay and she said yes. He asked his Daddy the next day and got the same reply. When he prodded Uncle Alec on it, same response again, though somehow his was the only one that seemed real genuine. Still, wasn’t his place to pry, however much he wanted to. Some folks parents had troubles and they just didn’t tell their kids. Will knew it was important to just love his Momma and Daddy as much as he could and just hope the rest came right in time.

“Goodnight, Momma,” he said then rushing at her to give her a hug. “Y’know Daddy’ll be home soon and everything will be okay. He always comes back to us.”

“I know, honey,” she smiled at his assurances and kissed the top of his head. “Now, off to bed.”

“Night. Uncle Alec!” Will called over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time.

“G’night, Will,” his uncle replied cheerily and yet looked altogether too serious when Parker turned around to face him. “You wanna tell me what’s goin’ on here?” he asked her.

Parker squirmed under his scrutiny because she knew there was no way out of this. Eliot hadn’t wanted to tell Alec the truth about Moreau, he really hadn’t wanted to tell Parker except she coaxed him into it when he was at his most vulnerable. Besides, Eliot had said Alec would want to stand by him in a different way to which Parker would. He’d want to saddle up and bring his gun, take down Moreau before he got to Eliot himself. There was no way he could allow Alec to do such a thing in his name, and so it was safer not to say a word.

As panicked as Parker was right now, she couldn’t see any choice but to confess the truth to Alec. It wasn’t as if he would ever deliberately scare her, but the look he was casting her way right now meant he did not want to be messed with. He wanted the truth and he deserved it, besides she needed to share the weight on her own shoulders right now.

“When Jonah Quinn got back from Chicago he talked to Eliot about Damien Moreau,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Ain’t that old bastard dead yet?” asked Alec, practically spitting as he spoke of the notorious criminal.

“No, but I wish he was, and I never wished anybody dead before,” admitted Parker, a lone tear streaking down one cheek when she shook her head. “Eliot heard from Jonah that Moreau had a new posse and was headed West. If he comes back here…” she stopped when emotion took her voice away, forcing her to swallow hard just so she could continue on. “Moreau holds grudges. You don’t just walk away from him, everybody who’s anybody knows that, and Eliot didn’t just walk… he shot his way out of that gang.”

Just as Alec’s expression shifted into a look of panic and pain, the sound of horses hooves echoed down the empty street. Parker and Alec were both rushing for the door, sure that their worries were now for nothing. The horse they heard would be good old Blue, bringing Eliot home once again. It was a nasty shock to realise they were wrong.

“Parker!” Jonah pulled hard on Starbuck’s reins just as soon as he saw his friend’s wife. “Parker, I’m sorry…” he told her, promptly falling to the ground just as soon as he attempted to dismount.

Alec rushed to help him up, reacting with wide eyes and a gasp when he saw how much blood he was wearing. He dare not ask if it was his own or someone else’s life spilled on his clothes.

“Easy, Quinn,” he said as the man fought to stand despite the fact it was clear one ankle at least would no longer hold him.

“What happened? Where’s Eliot?!” asked Parker in a panic, even as she attempted to help Alec get the injured Ranger into the house. “Jonah, please, tell me!”  she urged him, as he stumbled and sat himself down on the porch.

Quinn waved away any further attempts to help him and tried to catch his breath. He pushed his hair back off his face, barely noticing the blood that ended up there.

“We were ambushed. Me and Spencer. They came over the hill, Moreau and eight of his men,” he coughed a wet sickening cough. “We shouldn’t’ve stood a chance.”

“We gotta get you a doctor” said Alec looking him over, realising things were potentially much worse than they even looked here.

“Jonah, what happened to Eliot? Did he get away?” asked Parker, tears streaming from her eyes though she barely noticed as she practically shook the answers she needed from the Ranger.

She would usually care that she was practically attacking such an injured man, but honestly, all she could focus on right now as her husband’s fate. If he was in this state, if he was out there somewhere needing help, she had to get to him, no matter what. Perhaps Moreau had captured him and taken away. she needed to know and it had to be now.

“I hardly know what happened... it was just a mess of bullets,” Quinn winced as he tried to breathe enough to talk – a couple of busted ribs for sure and maybe a punctured lung were slowing him down. “Eliot was firing like a pro. He was determined we were getting out, yelling that we weren’t going down no matter what,” he explained, swallowing hard.

“So he got away?” said Parker hopefully, though the lead weight in her chest called her an idiot for ever thinking such a thing.

“I’m so sorry, Parker,” said Quinn, with tears welling in his eyes. “I saw him go down and… Eliot’s dead,” he said the dreaded words at last.

The reactions came all at once. Alec cried out like he was in physical pain for the loss of his brother. Parker went deathly pale and silent, even as Quinn gave in and cried. He lost his brother in arms today, a good friend and confidante. That coupled with the pain of his own injuries, the injustice of his living when another had died, it was too much.

Parker couldn’t see straight, she couldn’t hear or feel at all. Eliot was dead. Her Eliot. He was gone and he wasn’t coming back, not this time. Never again would she hear him say he loved her or feel his arms around her. He was gone.

“Where is he?” she asked then, no hint of emotion as the words fell from her lips. “Where is he?” she repeated, volume rising. “Did you leave him out there?!”

“What did you want me to do?!” Quinn yelled back at her, knowing it was wrong but unable to help it right now. “I had to run, one of them was still shooting, there were horses loose... I had to get away!” he tried to explain, dragging one sleeve across his face to get the tears and the blood out of the way. “I went back after, of course I did, but... but there was nothing there!” he cried.

Parker couldn’t breathe. She had no reaction for a full minute, and then her eyes landed on Alec as he slowly stood up to his full height.

“I’ll kill him,” he said in a low voice, so full of hate and anger, Parker had never heard anything like it from him. “I’m gonna find Moreau and...”

“You’re too late for that,” said Quinn then, laughing hysterically out of nowhere. “No way Spencer was goin’ down alone. Pretty sure he took out Moreau seconds before Chapman got in the final shot,” he relived the moment with a painful shudder. “And Chapman crawled away at best, I promise you that. Sure as anything, if Moreau lived, it’d be a miracle.”

Parker never saw Jonah’s eyes so dark. She knew exactly what he meant, but the death of Moreau, Chapman, any of those other monstrous men, it didn’t bring back Eliot. Her husband, her lover, her best friend. Parker put her hands over her face as the words washed over her again like a tidal wave. Eliot is dead.

There was a scream. It took Parker a moment to realise she had made that sound herself. Alec’s arms reached out to hold her but she didn’t want him. She wanted the one man she could never have. Her legs wanted to run but there was nowhere to go now. The man she always ran too was gone forever. Gone. Dead. Her Eliot.

Parker cried, and when Alec reached for her this time, she let him pull her into his arms, as he shed no fewer tears than she. Quinn gave up on trying to stay conscious now his story was told and slumped over the steps, glad of the blackness for a while. Eliot was his friend too, his brother even, and he had to watch him die. His pain was great, though perhaps not so bad as what Parker and Alec suffered.

In this moment, no-one thought of the other person this death would effect. Will was supposed to be in bed, but no-one could possibly sleep through a tragedy like this one. So much pain and distress, Will had come to investigate. He stood now, framed in the doorway to the house, having heard the worst of how his father came to die at the hand of Damien Moreau and his band of thugs. In this moment, Will made a silent vow, to one day avenge his father’s death, no matter how long it took for that day to come.


	8. Chapter 7 - Angels in the Devil's Land

People cope with tragedy in different ways, that’s what Sophie had said at least a hundred times since she arrived at the Spencer family home. Parker heard her and she believed her, except she wanted to ask one simple question. What happens when people can’t cope? There was no answer to that, not really, and she knew it. Father Nathan talked of faith and a better place, and it was some comfort to Parker. At the same time, she wanted to yell and scream at him for those words. Of course she was glad Eliot wasn’t suffering, that he was in a good place with the angels to watch over him and everything, but more than that, oh so much more, she wished he was here with her.

It wasn’t a selfish feeling, or it was but only in part. Parker didn’t just want or need Eliot here for her, she needed him here for their son. Poor Will was but twelve years old, just starting to become a man in his own right. This was just exactly the time when a boy needed his Daddy more than ever, but Will would never have that again. Eliot was gone, forever, and every time the thought passed through Parker’s mind she couldn’t deal.

Crying wasn’t something Parker had never done much, but it wasn’t wholly foreign as a concept. After the first day following Eliot’s demise, the tears just stopped. It was strange to not cry, she supposed, but no more tears would come for days after. She was numb, cold, lost. Will cried and she held him whilst he did so, though she could offer no words of real comfort. She didn’t know yet how they were going to get along without Eliot. He had always been there, to tell her how to be a wife and a mother, to show Will how to be a man. Without him, Parker just couldn’t imagine how the world would continue to turn correctly, and yet it did.

Alec didn’t come around much, and Parker forgot to wonder why. The truth was his own grief had gotten on top of him. He had known Eliot much longer than Parker had and loved him just as strongly. Their bond was that of brothers, regardless of race or blood. Losing him was like losing a part of himself, and that made him the only person who could really understand the pain Parker and Will suffered. Still, he couldn’t face them, not at first, it was just too hard. Will in particular was too harsh a reminder, looking so very much as Eliot had all those years ago when he was a boy himself. It would’ve broken Alec’s heart a hundred times over to come face to face with Will right now, and Parker too. He stayed away, working just as hard as ever all day, and drinking the evening away until darkness claimed him.

It was on the fourth day after Eliot’s passing that Sophie and Nate had arrived in town. They were bemused to not be met in town at the coach station, but didn’t worry. They asked a friendly looking neighbour where they might find the Spencer house and were surprised to be met with shock and sadness. They got their news second hand from the townsfolk, how the Texas Ranger named Eliot Spencer was cruelly shot down by the evil Damien Moreau and his posse. Not even a body was left for his poor wife and child to bury. Sophie had started up to cry the moment she heard of it, a rarely seen bout of emotion for a woman that usually kept herself so definitely in check.

Father Nate had crossed himself and said a silent prayer. He had never liked Eliot Spencer for taking Parker away, but even he had to admit the man couldn’t be so very bad if the couple had lasted this long, ‘til death do them part, just like he said the day he wed them. Nate closed his eyes and forced back a wave of emotion. It was bad enough when death came to take away any person for any reason, but so much worse when a man was ripped from his family at the devil’s hand. He knew the name Moreau, there were few that did not, and they all knew the same things about that monster of an outlaw. He had no soul. Nobody who behaved the way he did could possibly be human, though Nate was not sure he believed that anyone walking God’s Earth could be anything else. There was good in all men, even if it was buried deep. It was what he had been taught and what he fought to cling to. In the case of Moreau, it was so much harder to believe. He had to wonder what horror once befell such a person as to turn them into what Moreau was now - a lying, cheating, murderous animal, who deserved to be put down like the dog he was.

Sophie and Nate had come upon Parker’s house, the door unbolted and the front steps stained with blood. They knew the victim here had been Jonah Quinn, a fellow Ranger who had come to give Parker the news of her husband’s death. The story had travelled fast around the whole town, and not a person there was not gossiping about the poor young widow woman and her darling boy.

“Hypocrites,” Parker muttered when she and Sophie spoke of it a couple of days later. “None of them liked me before, and suddenly I’m wonderful just because...”

The words wouldn’t come, the ones that said Eliot was gone for good. If she said it, then it was true. If it was true then she had to cope with it. Parker couldn’t cope, she just couldn’t.

“Of course people liked you,” Sophie told her kindly as she put a cup of sweet tea before the younger woman. “Whatever is there not to like?” she asked with a forced smile that they both knew was fake.

Parker almost laughed, a humourless strangled sound of pain, like an animal caught in a trap. People didn’t like her, and they certainly didn’t love her. There was only Eliot. She remembered the scene from so many years ago when she had told him so. Men didn’t like her that way, no-one had even asked her to dance before, and there he was stood before her, asking her to be his wife.

“Forever,” she said softly, hugging herself, eyes staring unseeing into the fire. “We promised forever... It wasn’t as long as I thought.”

* * *

Nate knocked on the door of the unfamiliar little tumble-down house, then let himself in when he found it was open. He only ever met Alec Hardison once before and that was many years ago, still he was easy enough to recognise. In fact, Nate thought how little the black man had changed these past fourteen years, except for the redness in his eyes and the curve in his back. Hard work was to blame for the latter, the bottle in his hand for the former, he suspected.

“You trespassin’,” he muttered just as soon as he realised somebody was in his home.

“Yes, I am,” replied Nate easily, waiting by the door for the younger man to look up. “Do you remember who I am?”

Hardison blinked several times, shook his head a little, tried to focus. Through the tears and the booze it didn’t come easy. Then he let out a hollow laugh.

“Parker’s preacherman Daddy-figure,” he said, saluting Nate with the mostly empty bottle in his hand. “Figured you’d be here soon. Didn’t so much think you’d be knockin’ on my door.”

Nate nodded that he understood that, coming further into the room. He didn’t even ask before taking the seat on the opposite side of the table from Alec, or when he plucked the bottle from his hand, wiping the top on is sleeve. He poured himself a healthy slug of whiskey into the nearest glass, even as Alec stared.

“A preacher who’s a drinkin’ man,” he muttered, at which Nate smiled.

“Even the good Lord himself drank wine. I don’t think he would deny us a little liquid assistance at a time like this,” he shrugged before downing the shot in one.

“Maybe not,” Alec agreed, drinking his own measure straight out of the bottle. “Why you here, preacher man?” he asked then. “Shouldn’t you be with Parker and Will?”

“Shouldn’t you?” Nate immediately countered, not even flinching when Alec glared his way. “The way Parker talked about you in her letters, you were as much a part of her new family as anyone. She looks upon you as a brother, Alec, always has, and now when she is in her greatest hour of need, you’re what? Making friends with the bottom of a glass?”

The bottle went flying from Alec’s hand, smashing against the far wall. He was on his feet in a second, hands braced against the table as he got in Nate’s face. Still the priest never moved, never wavered a second.

“You don’t get to come here and judge me, Father,” he sneered. “Eliot was my brother, my brother!” he yelled, one hand clutching at his chest, his broken heart.

“I know,” Nate replied calmly. “I know what it is to lose a brother, I genuinely do,” he assured the younger man. “I lost mine, and then when I had just got done falling completely in love with the family he left behind in my care, I lost them too.”

Hardison hadn’t known all of that, or maybe he had once, maybe Parker did tell him. Everything was hazy now and he just wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t sure of anything and Eliot wasn’t here to make it clearer like he always had been before, since Alec was all of six years old. He didn’t know how he was supposed to do this without his brother to have his back.

“I turned to alcohol for comfort, I started to lose faith,” Nate explained, as Alec sunk slowly back into his seat. “How could God allow the people I love to be torn away? But Alec, you have to remember, that there is a reason for everything, however hard it is for us to understand,” he told him. “If you can believe nothing else, believe that your brother, Parker’s husband, Will’s father, he has gone to a better place, and he will always, always be in your hearts, as all of you will forever be in his.”

It was one of his least manly moments, Alec knew, as his head dropped onto his arms upon the table top and he sobbed like a baby. He couldn’t help it, he knew Father Nate was right. It was just so very hard to deal with, to have the strongest force in your life torn out from under you so suddenly. Still, shutting himself away like this, it wasn’t right or fair. He should be there for Parker and for Will. It was what Eliot would’ve wanted, he said so in fact. He told Hardison several times that if he was ever taken before his time, as he always suspected he might be, Alec had to take care of those he left behind and loved so dearly.

“I gotta... I gotta help,” he started to say as he looked up then. “Parker and Will, I gotta...”

“Yes, we all have to help them get through this hard time,” Nate agreed with him. “But one thing you must not do, Alec,” he said definitely then, reaching to grasp the younger man’s arm, making him meet his eyes. “Do not hold on to anger and hate,” he urged him. “I walked that path for far too long. If not for Sophie, I... I dread to think what I might’ve done. Someone that you love, a man of honour like Eliot, he wouldn’t want that.”

His meaning was clear to Alec though the actual words were never spoken. Nate was right too. Killing Moreau would be satisfying for a while, but it would not be what Eliot wanted. Alec doubted he could ever do such a thing himself anyway, but the thought had crossed his mind far too many times these past few days. Quinn had suspected Moreau was dead, but Alec didn’t believe it. A monster like that was not so easily put down. The rat would just retreat to his hole and rise again later. Maybe Quinn was mistake, maybe just telling Parker what she needed to hear. Either way, Alec knew hunting down his brother’s killer would not help anyone, and it certainly wouldn’t bring Eliot back.

“You’re right,” he nodded once, wiping his face clean with his sleeve. “You’re absolutely right.”

Now he had to get up, get clean and dressed in something decent. Alec Hardison had to take himself over to the Spencer house and start to helping put this family back together. He was a brother and an uncle, and he was needed right now. He should check on Jonah, see how his healing was coming along, because that man had lost a brother too. He had responsibilities, damnit, and Eliot would never let such things slide. Alec wouldn’t either. He would make his brother proud, no matter what.

* * *

It broke Sophie’s heart to see Parker like this and yet there was so little she could do or say to make it better for her. Loss was a part of life, but that was too cliché and unhelpful to actually say to her. Telling her everything would be okay would be a lie. Things would get better, easier, because time really was a great healer, but nothing would ever be the same again, it couldn’t be. There would be a hole in Parker’s life that no other person would ever be able to fill. Sophie knew that, just as well as she did. There was no way around it. In the end, the only tactic she found, a full week after her and Nate’s visit had begun, was tough love.

“Parker, I understand that you’re hurting, I really do,” she told her, putting a hand to her arm to gain her full attention, “but you can’t spend the rest of your life mourning. Eliot wouldn’t want that.”

It made sense, Parker couldn’t argue with it. She pictured Eliot stood in the doorway then, looking past Sophie as she did so. If he were here now, he would shake his head and sigh. He would smile that beautiful smile that made his blue eyes sparkle.

“Parker, c’mon,” he would say to her. “Ain’t no use cryin’ over all this when there’s nothin’ that can be done to change it. I’m not worth all these dumb tears.”

She could try to tell him he was worth it, that he was worth everything. They’d had similar conversations when he got hurt before and she had to patch up knife wounds and bullet holes that he didn’t want to bother to doctor with. He always smiled when she told him how much she loved him, and promised her faithfully that she meant the world to him, that she and Will had his whole heart, forever. That couldn’t change now he was gone away, because love lasted longer than anything, transcended all things, including life and death.

“When the day comes, Parker, that you gotta go it alone without me, you’ll do just fine,” he said once, even as she hugged onto his shoulder and tried not to cry. “Maybe it’ll be tough, but you gotta be strong, you hear me? You and Will, you gotta be as strong as I know you are deep inside.”

It had taken her a long time to find her voice, but when he took a hold of her chin and made her meet his eyes, she’d smiled and promised him faithfully that was just what she would do. She’d use the strength she was born with, combined with that which he had taught her. She could cope with anything then, her and Will together. Still she hoped and prayed that the day never came when she had to keep that promise, that at the very least she’d be old and grey before Eliot left her alone in the world. Somehow Parker always knew it would be that much sooner that they said their last goodbye. Eliot just had to go and proved her right it seemed.

“Momma?” said Will as he appeared on the stairs.

“Come here, honey,” she called to he son, opening her arms for him to run into.

They shared a long hug, in which she held him tighter than ever before. Sophie got up from the table and moved away, muttering some explanation for her going. The truth was she suddenly felt like she was intruding, and that she would bawl like a baby if she stayed a moment longer.

“I miss him, Momma,” said Will, words muffled against Parker’s dress. “I wanna be like him, strong like a man, but... but it’s hard,” he confessed.

“I know, Will,” she agreed, voice wavering as she put a hand to his face and made him look at her then. “It’s probably going to be hard for a long time yet, but we can get through this. Your Daddy loves us, he always did and he always will, and just because he’s not here to tell us that anymore doesn’t mean it’s not true, okay?”

Will nodded dumbly, swallowing down hard.

“Now, I once made your Daddy a promise that if... if this time ever came when we had to do without him, that I would be strong, for myself and for you,” Parker explained, having to clear her throat three times and wipe a stray tear away before she could continue. “Now I need you to make me the same promise, William Spencer. I know it’s hard, I know you still have some growing to do, but you can be strong for me, can’t you? We can do this together, for Daddy’s sake.”

“Sure we can, Momma,” he said softly, even though it took everything he had not to cry like a baby. “I’m gonna be a man just like him. Gonna be a Texas Ranger and... and he’s gonna be so proud o’ me.”

“I know he will, baby,” said Parker, voice breaking, tears flooding so suddenly she could hardly breathe.

Will flung himself back into her embrace and the both of them cried. What the boy that would be a man refused to tell his mother was the rest of the dreams he had for the future. He wasn’t just going to make Eliot proud by becoming the great man and Ranger he had been before. He was going to avenge his Daddy’s death by hunting down Damien Moreau some day. Uncle Jonah said the monster was slain. Some of the townsfolk said he was gone back East, trying to outrun the wanted posters that were popping up everywhere, but Will knew he would survive yet, Daddy had said those types of scum always did. One day, his time would come, and Will was certain even then at the age of twelve, that Moreau would die at the end of a gun held in the hand of a Spencer. He was going to make sure of it.


	9. Chapter 8 - In His Father's Footsteps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there was a delay between Chapters 7 & 8 but there is going to be another delay yet. I thought I knew where I was going with this fic, then I got a new idea. I now want to write two endings, so I'm going to, and that'll mean two versions of Chapters 9, 10, and the Epilogue. Until I've completed both versions and worked out which I want to post (or how I'm going to post both) there will be no more updates on this fic. I hope you will enjoy this chapter (enjoy is probably the wrong word actually! lol) and come back in a few weeks time to read whichever ending I write/post in the not-too-distant future :)

Parker never thought to feel old. In truth, she barely suited the word even now. Though she had been a widow more than six years now, and was mother to a boy fully grown into a man of eighteen, she wasn’t even forty herself yet, not in the least bit old. Life had been a strange chain of circumstances, she thought, as she looked back over the pictures kept in her most special box. Eliot had carved and fashioned it for her and named it her memory chest. Most of its contents was paper, sketches she had made of Will as he grew over the years, from a babe in arms to now, plus pictures of Eliot, Nate, Sophie. There were letters too, written in her husband’s hand. Though he was the toughest of men, he could write poems that’d melt the strongest of hearts, all words of love and devotion to her. Parker treasured all of these things, and many others, but none really made up for what she had lost, and had yet to lose.

The men that had come into Parker’s life were fighters. It was built into the fibre of their bodies, she was sure, for Eliot and Will both seemed to have a natural need to fight and protect. Today marked the day when William Spencer officially followed in the footsteps of his father, becoming a Texas Ranger with a star on his belt as proof of that role.

Parker was proud. She had watched her boy grow to a man, becoming ever more a picture perfect copy of the man she fell in love with so many years ago. There was no doubting at all that Will was Eliot’s son. He had his good looks and easy charm, sparkling blue eyes and a strength that showed in both his body and his character. He was a man’s man as some would call it, he could ride, shoot, and fight as well as any, almost as well as his Daddy.

Alec had helped to raise Will after Eliot died. Parker knew the boy needed a man to look up to, and who better than Uncle Alec to show him the way? It hadn’t even bothered Parker when Will wanted to spend more time with the Rangers and Quinn in particular. It was Jonah that taught Will to shoot, something he seemed to have a natural ability for. It was her and Alec that ensured he had the sense to know you didn’t use such skills for bad, only good. If he was to be a Texas Ranger, he had to be tough, but he also had to show compassion and understanding. Eliot had been such a man and Parker was determined that their son would be the same. She did her best to ensure he did not give in to the anger and hate that was so easily found after Eliot was killed, especially when they came to realise Moreau had survived.

There were rumours from the beginning. Some said Quinn was right, that he must be dead, but as with Eliot, the body was nowhere to be found. The Rangers tracked all over the plains, searching for those that had fallen. Moreau’s right hand, Crawford was found dead from the fight, alongside two of the others from the posse. At least one was missing, maybe two, along with Moreau himself, and Eliot. Whether they crawled away or not was anyone’s guess for the first few months, but then the reports of Moreau’s survival started coming in thick and fast. He had gone back East, whether to lick his wounds or what, nobody was sure.

The townsfolk started to put the story together for themselves. Parker found herself whispered about and shunned by some of the older folks, the families long established in town. People started to remember Eliot’s disappearance from town and subsequent return years ago. They made assumptions about his connections to Moreau. Some dared to say he deserved the death that befell them, some even attacked the house his widow and son lived in. It was around that time that Quinn brought Parker a gun of her own.

“I don’t... I haven’t touched a gun in years,” she had told him shakily, remembering the few times on the streets when the only way to protect herself had been to threaten her enemies with an unloaded pistol.

She never had fired on a person, and never thought she wanted to. Eliot never offered to show her how, and she never asked. Parker had her husband to take care of her, and skills enough to evade attackers and get away as needed. It was only that day when Jonah spoke of enemies, the risk to Parker and her son, she realised she had to learn.

Alec didn’t like it, but he did understand. He wasn’t much for weaponry, but he had the advantage of being able to handle himself in a tussle. Parker was a strong woman but no match for those in town that might decide to hurt her. He couldn’t always be there to watch over his family, it didn’t hurt for Parker to have protection of her own.

By the time Will turned fifteen and graduated out of school, Parker no longer feared facing anyone in town, but some of the folks that lived nearby had concerns about upsetting her. She carried a gun all the time, though nobody could say they ever saw her fire it, none but Quinn who taught her how. Along with the holster, she wore a scowl almost constantly, hardly ever a smile. It was understandable in the beginning, so close to Eliot’s death. She was too young to be a widow and a mother alone, but everyone thought she would learn to cope in time, that the sunshine smile would return to her eventually - it never did.

Parker became suspicious of the people around her, the supposed friendly townsfolk. They talked behind her back, she knew. The other kids teased Will about his father’s death, voiced the rumours their parents and families kept behind closed doors. That Eliot was one of Moreau’s men once, that he deserved what befell him. Parker wanted to scream at every one of them - men, women, and children - for sullying the good name of her beloved Eliot. Of course, she knew it was true that he had been part of Moreau’s posse once, when he was young and naive. Just as soon as he could, he left that gang and came home, to the place where he would eventually meet and marry Parker herself. Their lives had changed that day and forever.

Parker thought she had become hardened by her life on the streets. When she became a wife and mother, she was sure she completed the task of growing up. It was only when Eliot died that she realised what it really was to be an adult and to be truly tough. She had to learn to survive all over again. Though she had a home and a son now, the love of a man that was unwavering despite his passing, Parker felt alone. Sophie and Nate could only stay so long before they must return to the new life they had built together. Alec tried to help, so did Jonah, but Parker knew she was actually alone. It fell to her to keep the house in order, to ensure there was a roof over their heads and food on the table, so she and Will survived. She helped him with his studies, got him though school, and watched the little boy who cried in the night for his Daddy grow into a man with eyes that sparkled just like Eliot’s own. He could be mistaken for a younger version of his father more often than not, and Parker loved and hated that fact every day. Today would be hardest of all, to have him come home with a Ranger’s badge on his belt, riding his own horse proudly as a Texas lawman legacy.

“All he ever wanted was to make you proud,” she whispered to the charcoal drawing of Eliot she held in her hands. “All I ever wanted too,” she added with  a sad smile, swallowing down the lump that formed in her throat.

Silently Parker prayed for Will’s safety in his new job. It was all he wanted to be, and Parker was glad to know he was living the way he wanted. At the same time, she lived with the fear that the same fate would befall her son as came to her husband. He was only eighteen, and barely that. In her heart, Parker still thought of Will as her baby, the tiny child she held in her arms so long ago and cried in happiness at the sight of. Now he was grown, but not as invincible as he seemed to think.

“Momma?” his own voice called from the door.

Parker scrambled up from the floor, dusting off her dress. She pushed her keepsakes back into their chest, shutting down the lid, before hurrying down the stairs. There he was. The sight of Will dressed as smart as he ever had been, hat on his head and badge at his belt, he was every inch his father then. Eliot as he had been when they first met, though a little young yet and still with innocence dancing behind his eyes. Will was a good, strong, upstanding man, and Parker could hardly stand the force of the pride and love that swelled in her chest.

“Your father would be so proud of you,” she promised him, as tears sprang from her eyes. “I know he is,” she added with a shaky smile.

Will looked almost just as moved as he rushed to his mother and hugged her tight to him. It was still a surprise to her when Parker realised he was the same height as her now. She ought to be used to it, since her son’s sudden growth spurt at age fifteen, but it still startled her. He was the spit of his Daddy, she thought it all the time and it made her want to smile and cry all at the same time, every day.

“Er, Uncle Jonah... Ranger Quinn,” he amended, clearing his throat, standing straight as a soldier then. “He and the other men are gonna take me out around the area, introduce me the folks further out of town and all,” he explained.

Parker nodded along, wiping away one stray tear from her cheek. Her son, the man of law, she really was so proud.

* * *

Alec came over to the Spencer house quite often, sometimes for an evening meal, or maybe on a Sunday to walk with the family to church. Parker was as much as sister now as Eliot had ever been his brother, and Will was forever his beloved nephew. They were his family, despite the fact they shared no blood bond, a connection he found had only increased since Eliot’s passing. They only had each other now, and Alec treasured those he loved more than anything else in the world. That was why on this particular day when he heard shots coming from the yard he was in such a hurry to run around back and see what was happening.

It came as a shock to Alec Hardison to see Parker shooting a gun. He knew she could, she had told him as much. Jonah Quinn taught her, and Alec never gave an opinion on it, even though he hated to know she had learnt such things. It was true enough that Parker had to toughen up when Eliot died. She had started to cuss at times, and make it known to folks she didn’t care for any of their negative opinions. Out-spoken he could understand, and mad at the world, but the shooting did not sit well with Alec.

The last glass bottle in the row shattered to shards alongside its four friends, and Parker lowered the smoking gun. She breathed deeply, as if she hadn’t been able to do so at all when she was firing those shots, as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Alec stopped and stared a moment, mindful of startling her when he was pretty sure there was still one more bullet held in the barrel.

“Pretty good, huh?” she said then, turning slowly to look at Alec.

She might look pleased with herself if she actually smiled, but she didn’t. A grin was more than rare on Parker’s face these days, it was practically non-existent, unless she was talking to Will about how damn proud she was of that boy.

“You a real fine shot, Parker,” he told her honestly. “Not so sure if I think that’s a good thing or not.”

Parker didn’t answer that, just let the arm holding the gun drop to her side and turned to head back into the house. She called something to Alec about coming inside if he wanted dinner, but he barely heard. He was still staring at the broken bottles on the fence a while longer.

“Hey!” he called to his sister then. “Parker...”

“What?” she asked as she turned to look back at him, meeting his eyes.

“He wouldn’t want you to do it,” he said seriously. “Eliot, he wouldn’t want you to. Anymore than he’d want me, or Will, or anyone to sacrifice their soul for that ol’ devil.”

Parker stared back at him. They both knew she understood just exactly what he meant. Alec thought she learnt to shoot for more than protection, that maybe she was planning some kind of revenge on her husband’s killer. Maybe she was. In the night when she was crying herself into nightmare-filled sleep, yeah, she considered it. Whether she would ever actually dare pull the trigger when faced with Moreau’s smug face, she couldn’t really say.

“If you want dinner, come inside,” she repeated.

Alec let it go. There was nothing else for him to do right now.


	10. Chapter 9B - Last Man Standing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t mean to be gone so long from this story, but it gave me issues with the writing of it, and my head has been all in other fandoms lately, as some of you may have noticed. Anyway, back now! This is Chapter 9 in the alternate ending to this story (because I couldn't choose between the original and this, so both are getting posted in different places). The original ending has been posted at Fanfiction.net. It’s just the end of this chapter that’s different, but Chapter 10 and the Epilogue will be completey changed.

Parker learnt to be handy around her own house. Fixing things wasn’t that hard, and she seemed to have a knack for it, but every so often the skills she needed were not enough. As much strength as she had, sometimes a second pair of hands and a little more arm strength was required. That was when she allowed Alec to assist her. He was the one man she didn’t feel strange about letting into her home, taking over a little of the role that should have been Eliot’s own. Will helped a lot but even now as a man, Parker couldn’t help but see her little boy sometimes. He already worked so hard in his duties as a Ranger, and spent increasing amounts of time with ‘Uncle Jonah’. It was easier to let Alec, who was finding McRory had less and less work for him, to assist around the Spencer house.

This was how it came to be that Alec was on the roof, patching up a hole, whilst Parker stood below watching. She had her hand up to shield her eyes as she pointed out to the man she called her brother where the damage must be, for it had been leaking in the rain a few days before. It was hard to think the weather had ever been so wet now. Everything was dry as a bone and the sun beat hard against Parker’s back. It was only the sudden absence of heat, caused by a shadow coming over her, that even told her anyone was there. Quinn always had been a sneaky one, but that just made him a better Ranger.

“Parker,” he said as she turned to face him.

He looked pale and strange somehow. Usually there was a smile on his handsome face, no matter the circumstances. The only time she remembered seeing him so serious before was that faithful night when Eliot had breathed his last.

“Is it Will?” she asked immediately, so afraid the worst had happened and she had lost the only other man in her life she could love as much as Eliot.

Quinn shook his head, looking up at Hardison as he came down from the roof to join them.

“We got word from back East,” he explained to them both. “Moreau has a new posse and a new plan of attack. He robbed a bank in Chicago, another in Little Rock, and last night a third in Jericho. Folks are sayin’ he’s headed for the border.”

“And one thing standin’ ‘tween him and Mexico is this town,” said Alec, a darkness coming over his face the like of which Parker had never seen there before.

She knew very well what this meant. It was her one chance and she wondered if she had the gall to take it. Alec always told her Eliot would never want her or Will or anyone to trade their soul for the life of Moreau. Still, her hand drifted to the pocket of her apron where the revolver always resided, just in case she needed protection.

“Where’s Will?” she asked then, meeting Quinn’s eyes. “Jonah, tell me!” she demanded when he wavered.

“I don’t know,” he admitted then. “We got the news about Moreau maybe headed this way, and he rode off like a crazy person. I couldn’t stop him.”

The words were barely out of his mouth and Parker was already in motion. She headed for the stable and started to get out her horse. Blue had long since passed his prime, not getting half so much excercise as he used to, but he was a good boy and Parker loved him dearly. He would get her where she needed to go, and he wouldn’t flinch when the bullets flew. It seemed inevitable now.

“Parker, no!” Alec told her, rushing to grab the reins even as she swung herself atop the horse. “You can’t just go ridin’ on out there...”

“My son is out there, Alec!” she said firmly, setting herself onto Blue’s saddle and dragging the reins into her own hands. “I’m not losing him too.”

“I’ll ride with you,” Quinn told her, going to grab his own mount.

Parker nodded once in agreement and then set her eyes to the horizon. She barely noticed Quinn appear alongside her on the back of Starbuck until he spoke.

“You think Will is out looking for revenge?” he asked, sure he already knew the answer.

“Yeah,” Parker nodded, as she kicked the horse into action. “And he’s not the only one.”

* * *

Alec Hardison sat on the front porch of the Spencer house, knees bouncing, hands tapping. He couldn’t bear this sitting and waiting, wondering what was going to happen. Parker wanted him to stay here and wait in case Will came home. They both knew he wasn’t going to, not with Moreau close by. Sure, the young man might think to come and defend his Momma, but more than that, he wanted revenge. They all knew it, though they tried not to make a big deal. Tell that boy not to do something he was just as likely to turn around and do it all the more. He got that from both his parents in their own way. William Spencer was the independent type, but he was also the loving type. Nothing meant as much to him as his folks, and avenging his Daddy’s death had been on his mind since he was a boy.

It occurred to Alec to grab himself a horse and go after Will and Parker. He honestly didn’t trust either of them not to do the ultimate stupid thing. He couldn’t blame them, not really. He knew the yearning to avenge his brother’s death existed inside him too, but every time it threatened to overtake, he remembered old Father Nathan’s words. Eliot wouldn’t want it that way, he just wouldn’t, and so Alec did the only thing she could think to do - he prayed. He asked God to take care of those he loved. He prayed for a miracle, because that was all that would help right now.

On the outskirts of town, Parker hadn’t a prayer in her right now. She was hell-bent on finding her son, and perhaps even more so on taking down Moreau. Parker wasn’t sure whether she would be happier if she found the nerve to pull the trigger, or the good sense not to. One thing she knew for sure, she needed to look the old devil they called Damien Moreau right in the eyes, just once, even if that moment was his last or her own.

“Are we really out here looking for Will?” asked Quinn, not even glancing at her, as the horses fell to a walk beside each other.

“If we do find him, he’s not going to come home willingly anyway,” she replied, wiping her arm across her forehead that ran with sweat beneath her hat. “You know that, Jonah. Know it better than anyone.”

She was right, Quinn did know that and he wished he didn’t. He understood what fuelled Will to avenge Eliot’s death. He had a mind to do the same thing, but then Quinn didn’t have to worry about the consequences. More than one man had died at his hand, more than a dozen even. Moreau would put him at gun’s end and Quinn’s taking him down would be perfectly acceptable to the town, the county, the world. For Will or even Parker, it would be so different. They might be a hero to everyone else, but inside their hearts they would be no better than the monster they shot down. It would destroy good folks like them to be that person. That was what Jonah Quinn feared for his old friend’s family.

“Parker,” he said, getting her attention as they came to a halt on the ridge. “I won’t tell you not to get your revenge, but you ought to think about the consequences,” he told her plainly. “When you kill a man, he’s not the only one that dies. A little piece of you, it breaks away, it... You can’t ever be the same again, sweetheart,” he said, sounding just a little too much like Eliot in that moment - Parker visibly flinched at the endearment.

“Moreau killed my husband,” she said coldly. “Why should he live?”

Quinn had no real answer to that, and was saved from having to find one when the sound of approaching hooves made both him and Parker turn sharply on their mounts. Patrick Bonnano, a fellow Texas Ranger, approached at a heck of a speed, pulling up with precision in front of the two.

“Quinn, you need to take your position,” he said breathlessly. “Moreau’s posse have been spotted a couple of miles out, eight of them total” he explained. “If we’re gonna go for a successful ambush, we need all the hands we got.”

Quinn looked towards Parker with a  frown. He had a duty to the men, to the town, but this was Eliot’s widow. He already let her down once, the day her husband died, the night he couldn’t manage to bring the body of his brother in arms home.

“Go,” she said simply, turning her horse away. “I’m fine alone. I’m used to it,” she admitted sadly, before she rode off at an impressive pace.

Bonnano and Quinn both watched her go with sadness and regret. People said William Spencer was his father’s son and in many ways they were right. Still, there was no denying his mother made a big impression on his character too. There was just no stopping either of them when they got an idea in their head

* * *

Parker was out on the edge of town when she heard the uproar. Horses hooves and shots could have meant anyone, good or bad, but somehow she knew it was them. The whooping and hollering was her son, Will’s voice was unmistakable, and behind him came the galloping mass of Moreau and his posse. Like all true villains, Moreau rode a horse as black as night and it streaked across the prairie like a bat out of hell. Parker didn’t even have time to breathe, just kicked her own horse into action and rode for all she was worth. She knew what Will was doing now, forcing Moreau into town where he knew every inch of the streets and could use it to his advantage. Out in the open was too dangerous, as Eliot had found to his peril, no matter how well a man knew the land. Town would be complicated for Moreau, easy as pie for Will, or so the boy thought. At eighteen, he looked like a man but Parker knew that inside he was still the twelve year old that stood on the porch step and heard Uncle Jonah tell him his Daddy was gone forever. Will was out for revenge, and Parker knew she couldn;t let it happen. Will would not be allowed to destroy himself as he took down Moreau. If she learnt one thing about parenthood over the years, it was that she must be a better mother than she ever had herself, she must protect Will to the end.

Blue was fit to drop when Parker reached the edge of town, she swung down from his back before he hardly stopped moving, patting his side as she land in the dust. The town was eerily quiet, like a ghost town, as men, women, and children scrambled for cover. They knew what was coming, they’d already heard that Moreau was nearby and then they heard the stamping hooves and hollering coming closer - they all ran and hid.

Parker approached downwind, watching the scene unfold. There in the centre of main street, Damien Moreau stood. More handsome than the wanted posters made him look, she knew, but twice as mean as his reputation. She couldn’t see Will at first. The boy was smart enough to use his skills and knowledge to the full, not to just stand where he could be gunned down by Damien or one of his posse of four. She swore Bonnaon said seven men at his back before. So far, so good.

Gun in hand, Parker tried to force herself still, but every nerve ending jangled, every digit shook with panic. It wouldn’t stop her from following through on her promise, but it made it that much harder to hold her nerve. Down the back alley, her feet made no sound in the dirt, she made sure of it. Circling round, she came back down between the tanners and the grocery store. The bank was on the other side of the street. If that was what Moreau had really come here for, one last heist before he hit the border, then he was unlikely to ever look Parker’s way. A bullet to the back of the head was all it’d take, and her aim would be true.

“You’re a dead man, Moreau!”

The yell went up and Parker shuddered at the sound. Eliot’s voice came from her own son’s lips, as it so often did. he couldn’t know how very much like his father he was, but Moreau did.

“Well, this must be young William Spencer” the old devil smiled. “You picked a heck of a time to choose to be a man, son.”

“Don’t you dare call me that!” Will shot back at him, even as Parker noticed the other Rangers shifting into secreted positions like her own. “You’re not even fit to speak my father’s name! He was ten times the man you’ll ever be!”

Moreau laughed at that, a deadly hollow sound. He turned his head a little as if he thought he heard something, then reacted with the minorest of flinches when two of his men fell behind him. Will was taking point, but his fellow Rangers were right there. Only two of Moreau’s posse left, and they began firing wildly to bring down their attackers. There was a shout a ways off that Parker didn’t quite recognise. One of the Rangers was hit - she hoped to God not fatally.

“You can’t win, Moreau,” said Will then, hand hovering above the holster at his hip, whilst his enemy held a similar stance. “You’re not getting away this time.”

“That what you really think, boy?” he challenged with a smirk. “Y’know you really are just like the Spencer I used to know. Just as handsome and strong. Just as pig-headed and dumb,” he sneered.

Will held onto his temper by a thread. It was planned for this to happen, for Moreau to be distracted until the other Rangers had taken out his men, then it was five against one and Damien wouldn’t stand a chance. As it was Will was fighting a losing battle with his anger and hate. Moreau moved a step closer, Will did the same. From this range, a shot to the heart ought to be easy enough, but Moreau had been a gunslinger since long before Will was born. Even the young Spencer knew he could die just as easy as Moreau in this battle, and he just couldn’t do that to his Momma.

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue now, Willy?” asked Damien, moving to take one more step.

In a second, the last two of his men fell down dead, leaving him alone. Will drew his gun before Moreau could make it to his own, and the devil quirked an eyebrow and let a serpentine smile spread across his lips.

“Is this what Daddy taught you, junior?” he asked Will, raising his hands a little higher. “Shoot a man without a gun in his hand?”

Will swallowed hard and tried not to react. He had this monster at gun’s end and he could shoot him now, he could. Still, this would be the first time he ever shot a man down in cold blood. Even though he knew Moreau deserved death to come to him, it was a whole other deal making it happen. He could hardly breathe as Moreau slid forward another step.

Parker watched from her hiding place and forced herself to breathe. She didn’t want Will to take this shot, even if he could. She feared for his life, but more than that, she feared for his soul. It was now or never, and just as she thought it, Moreau said the self same words. It was like fate or destiny, now was her moment. Parker took her aim at the back of Moreau’s head, held the gun firm, started to squeeze the trigger...

Like slow motion, the bullet travelled, gently arcing through the air. It met the back of Moreau’s skull with audible crack, and he fell. Dead.

A shower of gunfire came after. Those on the ground that had once seemed dead were reanimated in a second. Rangers flew from their hiding places, the streets were a blur of hooves, boots, and bullets. Parker never heard a thing. Her eyes were fixed on one lone figure, appearing from the darkness of an alleyway himself, with a smoking gun in his hand. He had to be a ghost or a mirage, she was sure she must be going crazy just to think it, and yet...

“Eliot?” she gasped, tears pouring from her eyes as she staggered out into the street a moment after the smoke cleared and the battle ended. “Eliot!” she yelled, getting everyone’s attention as she ran full-force towards the man she was sure was her husband.

“Parker,” he breathed, that old familiar smile on his lips as she leapt into his arms and held on tight.

It didn’t make sense, but Parker didn’t care. She had to been in agony from a broken heart too long. She cried hard into Eliot’s shoulder and yet she was smiling, because she knew the worst was over.


	11. Chapter 10B - A Sense of Belonging

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last 'proper' chapter of the story, with just an epilogue to follow... probably at the weekend. Eliot's return was always going to be a surprise, but he has reasons for being away so long which are about to be explained. Alternate version of the plot is over at FF.net or on my LJ :)

Parker couldn’t stop smiling. If anyone had checked to see if she was breathing, she was pretty sure she wasn’t. Maybe she was dead; the thought had crossed her mind. After all, they had been in the middle of a gun battle, and then suddenly there he was, her husband, her hero. Eliot was back, or so it seemed, and it occurred to Parker that maybe that wasn’t the case at all. Maybe he wasn’t back, maybe she was gone, but no. Just as soon as she could bear to take her eyes off her husband for a fraction of a second, she saw her son. First Will and then Quinn, the Rangers and her friends and neighbours. Parker realised she had not ascended to Heaven, but her own slice of that place had come back to her.

Eliot hadn’t said much yet, except that he was so glad to be home, and that he loved everyone of his family. It was Parker and Will he kept closest to him, and there had been tears of joy and relief for all parties. They were back at the Spencer house, the family of three plus Hardison and Quinn, all in awe.

“It’s gotta be a miracle, man. An honest-to-God miracle!” Hardison cried joyously for what had to be the tenth time in as many minutes as he grabbed his brother and hugged him tight, one more time.

It only now seem to occur to anyone to ask how this so-called miracle had come to be, and it was Will that actually spoke the words.

“Wish I knew where to start,” said Eliot, shaking his head.

“How ‘bout the day I watched you die,” replied Quinn, a cold edge to his usually warm voice, especially in the company of those he considered family.

Eliot tore his gaze from the smiles on the faces of his wife and son, to meet the eyes of his brother in arms. Eliot knew he had been through a lot himself, but these people had suffered his loss, the ultimate loss because they had believed he was dead. Worse for Quinn, he probably blamed himself for not being a better partner. Eliot shook his head.

“I’m sorry, brother,” he told him sincerely. “If I’d had a way to tell you where I was, what really happened, I would,” he promised. “Goes for all of you here. If I could’ve come home, darlin’ you know I would’ve,” he spoke to Parker then, his hand cradling her cheek.

“I know,” she nodded, swallowed hard and tried to find her wavering voice. “But, where were you? What happened?”

Eliot looked away then, shook his head and sighed. This was a lot to explain and he didn’t really have any one good way to do it. He had to tell a tale he barely knew himself, but that wasn’t his fault either. He just had to do his best to let his family know he had not left them on purpose. He never would, he never could.

“That day I rode out to fight Moreau, I expected to come home again, with his blood on my hands,” he said, looking at the floor. “I’m not proud of that, but I knew it had to be done. It was his life or all of ours in danger.”

“You tried to do what you had to for your family, man, we understand that,” said Hardison trying to meet his eyes. “Now you done it. That old devil is gone for good ‘cause of you, and that ain’t nothin’ you should be ashamed of.”

“I know,” Eliot nodded, finding half a smile. “Saved my family from having to sacrifice their souls, that’s all that matters to me,” he said, reaching for Parker’s hand and patting Will’s knee. “But the first time I got the chance... I don’t really know what happened,” he confessed.

“I know you got shot down,” Quinn threw in, still needed an explanation here, however hard it was for Eliot to give. “I was pretty sure you took Moreau with you, but then I guess neither of you was quite as dead as I thought.”

“Promise you, Quinn, you weren’t the only one who thought I was dead,” said Eliot then, looking his way. “I never felt pain like that, just remembering it...” he shook his head, wincing at the very memory. “It’s the last thing that’s clear, the sound of hooves rushing away, the feelin’ of blood on my hands, and the pain.”

Parker swallowed hard, leaning closer to her husband and urged him on. Hearing of his pain hurt her too, but that was over now. As happy as she was to have Eliot back, Parker needed to hear what had kept him from her these past six years, no matter how awful it may be. Will was equally intrigued, and yet the shock of having his father back was putting paid to any genuine show of feelings he may have had.

“I thought I was done,” Eliot admitted, eyes taking on a faraway look as he recounted the tale. “There’s a hole in my memory of it all, even now. See, I opened my eyes to a light in the dark. The pain was gone, and I swear, I was expecting to hear some voice tell me this was my judgement day... but he wasn’t an angel or the good Lord come to take me, he was a man, a Cherokee.”

“Indians?” Quinn asked, eyes wide as ever anyone had seen them.

“Natives of the land,” Eliot nodded once. “They helped me. Must’ve picked me up and carried me miles to their camp, I had no idea where I was... or who I was,” he admitted as he looked around his family all sat around the room.

They were shocked, and yet each and every one knew it made perfect sense. If Eliot didn’t know so much as his own name, there was no way he would recall his home or family either. If he had no memory of people or a place to get back to, he wouldn’t try. It was the only explanation that made sense to Parker.

“You were with the Cherokees? For six years?” she checked.

“Off and on,” Eliot agreed. “There were some there spoke our language, others that didn’t, but we got along between us. There was this one man, they called him Chinmay. The tribe believed he was a mystic, sort of. That he could see things others couldn’t see. Old Chinmay, he swore blind he knew me somehow, that he knew I belonged with that tribe,” he explained.

Hardison smiled as he heard the tale. He believed every word because Eliot was telling it, but also because it made so very much sense. It wouldn’t be plausible to think Eliot would stay away from Parker, Will, or himself on purpose. Besides, of course the Cherokee would feel that Eliot belonged with them - his Momma had been one of them.

“When we all realised that I couldn’t remember so much as my name, Chinmay called upon the spirits to guide me. The tribe granted me a new name, and took me in as their own,” he smiled at the new memories that had been forced in place of the old. “I admit, I was happy there, but almost every night when I slept I dreamt another world, another life... my family,” he said, looking to Parker and Will sat either side of his own chair.

“You saw us in your dreams?” asked Will, at which his father smiled.

Though the boy was grown into a fine young man now, Eliot could still see the twelve year old he had been forced to leave behind so long ago. Ruffling his son’s hair, he smiled.

“You looked a little different, but yeah, son,” he assured him. “You were there, and your Momma too. I saw all kinds of people and places different nights, but I couldn’t understand, I couldn’t remember anything clear or concrete on it. In the morning, more often than not, it was all so hazy... but I knew I was loved, and that I loved the people in my dreams,” he smiled. “There was a piece of me missing the whole time I was gone, and it took something far stronger than I ever was to make me realise what my dreams were tryin’ to tell me,” he admitted.

“Two nights ago, I had a nightmare. Some kind of fit, they tell me, writhing and screaming, not a person in the camp could wake me,” he admitted, shuddering even now at the memory of the horrific dream. “I saw Moreau,” he said, cold as ice and twice as grave. “Something in me rose up at the sight of that monster, and then there was the two o’ you, on the opposite side of a line...” he faltered as he looked to Will and then Parker. “When I came to, Chinmay told me some great power had come through the camp in the night, something bright and all-powerful. He reckoned it had come for me, and I truly believe he was right. When I woke up, I knew who I was, and what I had to lose.”

It was a startling tale to hear, and yet Parker had no doubt it was true. Miracles could happen, Father Nathan had told her so, though none of them had quite believed there was one to be had where Eliot was concerned. The dead didn’t rise again, not regular people in this world. The after life was elsewhere, and yet somehow Eliot had been given a second chance. By rights he should’ve died, but instead he was spared, taken from his family for a while, but in the end brought back at exactly the moment he was needed most. Finally, he was home, and Parker couldn’t care about anything else.

“I missed you so much,” she told him, tears streaming down her face. “I never knew I could miss anyone as much as I missed you.”

“Darlin’, if I could’ve been here, I would,” he promised, his heart breaking as it always did at the sight of her tears. “The second I remembered who I was, what I’d left behind, I came back.”

“Just when we need you most,” Will chimed in, not minding at all when his father’s arm went around him and pulled him close.

There the family sat, a strange mass of entwined limbs, as they held on tight to each other, all three crying with tears of joy and relief. They were back together again at last, and this time nothing would part them.

* * *

It was late in the evening before Hardison left the Spencer house. Jonah had to go a little sooner, a necessaity rather than a want. He had his duties to perform, assurances to make and explanations to give on behalf of those he loved best in the world. Hardison hung on for as long as was reasonable and then knew he should head home for rest if nothing else - it had been a long emotional day for all.

Will knew his parents wanted to be alone now, and he would give them that chance, though he had plenty planned for his father now he was back. Eliot didn’t mind that at all.

“You became a man whilst I was gone, son,” he said, taking the boy’s face in his hands. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help with that, but you seemed to do just fine on your own.”

“I wasn’t alone” Will promised him. “I had Momma, Uncle Hardison, Uncle Jonah... and you. Whenever I did anything, I’d think to myself, what would my Daddy do?” he smiled. “I don’t know if I always got it right, but I tried.”

Eliot pulled his son into his arms then and hugged him tight. Men they may be, Rangers and proud, but that didn’t mean they didn’t love each other, that they weren’t so moved by their reunion they could hardly stand to breathe for fear of crying all over each other. They softly muttered words of their love for each other, and then young Will took himself off to bed.

Eliot turned to face his wife, as Parker rose from her chair. Here they were, reunited after six years of their almost twenty years marriage spent apart. Though they had been through so much between them, to him, she didn’t look a day older, and to her, he was just as handsome as ever. He reached for her hand which she gladly gave him, and when he pulled her close she went with a willingness she could barely contain.

“Parker...”

Her name from his lips sent a shiver through her she had missed for too many years, and when he kissed her the world went out of focus just like it always had before.

“Eliot,” she gasped between fevered kisses. “I tried to go on without you,” she admitted. “I tried but... but you were all I thought about.”

“Sweetheart, if I’d known,” he sighed against her lips. “Every night you haunted me, this beautiful angel I could never quite keep a hold on,” he confessed. “No other woman could ever be what you are to me, darlin’.”

Tears fell in the heat of passion and the warm caresses of true love. Two people parted as they had been, it was perfectly natural to want to hold on now and never let go. They made love through the night, in joy for what they had found again, in sorrow for time lost in between.

At last, they were sated and satisfied, bodies entwined beneath the covers of their own marital bed. Parker lay in Eliot’s arms in the dark, warm and content as she had ever been her whole life. When he asked if she was okay, she could barely find the words to reply.

“More than okay,” she whispered at last. “Perfect.”

He had a mind to agree that this moment was exactly that, as they fell asleep together.


	12. Epilogue - Home At Last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is where the story really ends. Here's the epilogue for Version B. Version A epilogue follows other Version A chapters at FF.net and/or my LJ. Thanks for reading :)

A storm had passed through, with all its wild winds and destruction, but the little town had survived.

Now as the sun shone with promise and lit up the whole place, a man and his wife stepped out into a new day with smiles and joy. Parker leaned her head on Eliot’s shoulder, as the pair stood out on the porch, watching for the arrival of their loved ones.

The wagon soon came into view, little hands and faces appearing, waving and smiling. Just as soon as the wheels stopped turning, a little boy came running ahead of his shorter brother, who toddled along behind, desperate to be grown already. Their mother called for them to watch their step, whilst their father watched all with a smile that made his eyes shine as blue as the sky above. His sons looked like him, and Ranger William Spencer looked like his own Daddy, a man fast getting used to the title of Grandpa.

It was strange at first for Eliot Spencer to come back to town. When his memory returned to him after almost six years of nothingness, there was nothing he wanted to do but come back to his home, his family, where he belonged. Still he carried with him the precious thoughts of the tribe that had cared for him out on the plains, those he knew now to be a different kind of family, his mother’s people.

Still, it hadn’t taken long for Eliot to reconcile the guilt he felt at having been away from Parker and Will so long. They forgave with ease, since the whole situation had been so out of everyone’s control. Eliot was where he was supposed to be now, and right on time too.

Not long after Eliot’s return, Will had found his own true love. Jessica was like no woman he had ever known, but just exactly what he needed. As tough and smart as any man Will ever met, but as beautiful as an angel too, she became his wife after barely six months of knowing each other. Compared to his parents, it was a long, slow romance!

Now they were a family, Eliot and Parker, William and Jessica, and little Alec and Jonah. There couldn’t be two better uncles to name his kids after, Will reckoned, and Eliot hadn’t minded at all that his name was relegated to the middle for both his grandsons. The men who helped raised Will deserved some recognition, as they deserved to be called family, despite no blood bond existing between them and the Spencers.

The townsfolk no longer looked upon any of the extended family as enemies. Eliot Spencer had returned like some kind of miracle, and rid the whole country of the threat that was Moreau. He had returned to be the same kind of upstanding family man and upholder of the law he had always been, at the side of his son and his fellow Rangers.

Now he looked upon those he loved with a smile there was just no way to contain, his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. It was as much a miracle to Eliot that he could deserve this much happiness as it was to anyone.

“Thank you,” he said softly towards the heavens, to God or his long gone parents that he believed still watched over him, maybe both – it didn’t matter.

“You okay?” asked Parker as she thought she heard him speak.

He nodded once, pulled her closer and met her eyes.

“I love you, Mrs Spencer,” he told her definitely. “I ever tell you that?”

“All the time, Mr Spencer,” she giggled like the young girl she hadn’t been in years, but still felt like whenever he looked at her this way. “But I don’t mind hearing it.”

The family all headed inside for cookies and lemonade, and a Sunday afternoon spent in peace and harmony. Eliot sighed contentedly as he surveyed the joyful scene from the edge of the room now. With a wide smile he stepped into the family gathering to which he belonged.

Home at last.

The End


End file.
